THE ROT AT COAST GENERAL HOSPITAL PART 1

One month ago we went to Coast General Hospital on a mission to find out the allegations about poor medical services and conspiracy to sideline some of the patients at the Coast's largest referral Hospital. This mission had been triggered by complaints from some of the patients who had gone to the hospital and couldn't get the services they went to seek .
     So the main objective was to face the doctors and find out if all the allegations was truth. We looked for a lady who had pneumonia and was to be treated , we accompanied her to the hospital on a Sunday evening at around 5:30 PM  and followed the usual procedure which is to purchase a patients medical record book.
The book together with a consultation fee goes at ksh.150 and we felt that this was already a burden for most of the patients who are low income earners.
      After getting the required book we were referred to room 2 and this is where the real hell begun. There was a queue of up to 50 people who were waiting for the said doctor to be seen at room 2. We sat patiently and waited for close to two hours and there was no sign of a doctor to attend to us. Some of the patients who we gave a short interviews told us that they had been waiting since 3:00 PM . Some parents had kids who had accidents and the worst part of it is that they were not given a first priority because such cases should be treated as emergencies and quick actions was supposed to be taken.
    We decided to seek answers from someone in charge of the smooth operations of the hospital. We inquired from some nurses to know who was in charge and we were referred to a lady doctor called Wanjiru and when we made our complain she said that maybe the doctor had taken a short tea break since he had been working from 2:00PM. This was the first cover up lie that we were told., what she wasn't aware is that we had already made a queue for 2 good hours without getting any help. So we asked her what we could since our patient needed some quick medical attention because her chest pain was too much.
She told us to go back and wait for the doctor, we went back but some medical officer who was keen on our actions realized that we were carrying out some private investigations came and took us the the emergency department and our patient was finally attended to.
       The services that we got didn't make us any happy because it meant that those who don't speak for themselves can't get the right services which are their fundamental rights.
The doctor who was to attend to patients reported at around 8:30PM and that time many patients had left for their homes with a belief that on Sundays there is always no medical services at the Coast General Hospital. I remember at one point when a women whose kids was critically ill lamented that she was gonna seek the services at Jocham Hospital. She cried bitterly and we felt her pain .
       We were directed to the hospital pharmacy to purchase some medicine and again we discovered another menace to good medical services that each and every patient do crave for. The medicines that were to be bought were not in the hospital pharmacy. We tried to find out why most of the important drugs were not at the hospital and we were told my one nurse who spoke on anonymity that some medical officers do take the drugs to their private pharmacies. A further interviews with some medical officers alluded to us that the County Government has not done enough to give out the necessary monetary support that is needed to buy drugs at the hospital.
      Just some few minutes before calling it a day on our mission one doctor Wanjiru approached us and told us that the doctor had some severe headache and that's why it took him long to get back to his office.  We left the hospital at 10:00PM and the remaining patients who were to be assisted by the doctor at room 2 became chaotic because everyone wanted to be served immediately.
      All we know is that many people will continue to suffer quietly as long as some serious actions are not taken against those who paralyze the services in all the life saving facilities in our country Kenya.
More are yet come on the bribery allegations and sabotage at our public health facilities.
Stay connected till we bring to you the second part of this.