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WORLD NEWS Friday 26 OctOber 2018

At many hospitals worldwide, you don't pay, you can't leave

By MARIA CHENG The CDC provides about
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — $1.5 million every year to
Doctors at Nairobi's Ke- Kenyatta National Hospital
nyatta National Hospital and Pumwani Maternity
have told Robert Wanyonyi Hospital, helping to cover
there's nothing more they treatment costs for patients
can do for him. Yet more with HIV and tuberculosis,
than a year after he first ar- among other programs.
rived, shot and paralyzed The CDC declined to com-
in a robbery, the ex-shop- ment on whether it was
keeper remains trapped in aware that patients were
the hospital. regularly detained at the
Because Wanyonyi cannot two hospitals or if it con-
pay his bill of nearly 4 million dones the practice.
Kenyan shillings ($39,570), Dr. Agnes Soucat of the
administrators are refusing World Health Organization
to let him leave his fourth- said it does not support pa-
floor bed. tient detentions, but has
At Kenyatta National Hos- Detained patients lie on beds in the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya on Monday, been unable to document
pital and at an astonishing Aug. 6, 2018. where it happens. And
number of hospitals around Associated Press while WHO has issued hun-
the world, if you don't pay dreds of health recommen-
up, you don't go home. than 20 hospitals visited by clined to respond to re- gist at the Moi Teaching dations on issues from AIDS
the AP in Congo, only one peated requests for com- and Referral Hospital in El- to Zika virus, the agency
The hospitals often illegally did not detain patients. ment. doret, about 300 kilometres has never published any
detain patients long after "What's striking about this is- Health experts decry hos- northwest of Nairobi, said guidance advising coun-
they should be medically sue is that the more we look pital imprisonment as a the institution regularly de- tries not to imprison people
discharged, using armed for this, the more we find it," human rights violation. Yet tains children with cancer in their hospitals.
guards, locked doors and said Dr. Ashish Jha, direc- the United Nations, U.S. and who have finished their Many Kenyan human rights
even chains to hold those tor of the Harvard Global international health agen- treatment, but whose par- advocates lament that
who have not settled their Health Institute. "It's proba- cies, donors and charities ents cannot pay. hospitals continue to hold
accounts. Even death bly hundreds of thousands, have all remained silent "It's not a very good feeling patients despite what was
does not guarantee re- if not millions of people, while pumping billions of for the doctors and nurses seen as a landmark judg-
lease: Kenyan hospitals that this affects worldwide." dollars into these countries who have treated these ment in 2015.
and morgues are holding During several August visits to support their splintered patients, to see them kept Back then, the High Court
hundreds of bodies until to Kenyatta National Hospi- health systems or to fight like this," Njuguna said. ruled that the detention
families can pay their loved tal — a major medical insti- outbreaks of diseases in- Still, many officials openly of two women at Pum-
ones' bills, government offi- tution designated a Center cluding AIDS and malaria. defend the practice. wani who couldn't pay
cials say. of Excellence by the U.S. "People know patients are "We can't just let people their delivery fees — Mai-
An Associated Press investi- Centers for Disease Control being held prisoner, but leave if they don't pay," muna Omuya and Mar-
gation has found evidence and Prevention — the AP they probably think they said Leedy Nyembo-Muga- garet Oliele — was "cruel,
of hospital imprisonments witnessed armed guards have bigger battles in pub- lu, administrator of Congo's inhuman and degrading."
in more than 30 countries in military fatigues standing lic health to fight, so they Katuba Reference Hospital. Omuya and her newborn
worldwide, according to watch over patients. De- just have to let this go," said He said holding patients were held for almost a
hospital records, patient tainees slept on bedsheets Sophie Harman, a global wasn't an issue of human month next to a flooded
lists and interviews with on the floor in cordoned-off health expert at Queen rights, but simply a way to toilet while Oliele was
dozens of doctors, nurses, rooms. Guards prevented Mary University of London. conduct business: "No one handcuffed to her bed af-
health academics, pa- one worried father from Hospitals often acknowl- ever comes back to pay ter trying to escape.
tients and administrators. seeing his detained tod- edge detaining patients their bill a month or two Earlier this month, the High
The detentions were found dler. isn't profitable, but many later." Global health agen- Court ruled again that im-
in countries including the Kenya's ministry of health say it can sometimes result cies and companies that prisoning patients "is not
Philippines, India, China, and Kenyatta canceled in a partial payment and operate where patients are one of the acceptable av-
Thailand, Lithuania, Bulgar- several scheduled inter- serves as a deterrent. held hostage often have enues (for hospitals) to re-
ia, Bolivia and Iran. Of more views with the AP and de- Festus Njuguna, an oncolo- very little to say about it. cover debt."q