‘How I spent my one year in hospital detention over Sh430, 000 unpaid bill’
Maria Maria at the Nakuru Level Five Hospital. She is one of the beneficiaries of the five million waiver rolled out by the government of Nakuru in this photo taken on 31st August 2022
It is after lunch and Maria Maria, 47, sits pensively on her hospital bed at Nakuru Level Five Hospital, which she has called home for the past one year.
She has a cocktail of emotions. Being released from the hospital, where she was detained for failing to pay her treatment bill, should make her happy. But she does not know where to go.
You see, Ms Maria was brought to the hospital by a Good Samaritan and admitted in August last year. She had fractured her right leg in a road accident.
Doctors said Ms Maria was unconscious when she was booked. When she regained consciousness, she told medics that her name was Maria Maria.
Nurses, doctors and other caregivers then started referring to her by that name. In the one year she has been at the hospital, no relative has ever visited her.
She was billed Sh423,520 for her treatment. It was not until Tuesday this week that the bill was waived by Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika when she toured the facility.
Ms Maria was happy that she would finally be allowed to leave the hospital. But administrators are hesitant to release her as she cannot remember where her home is.
A nurse said it had been hard to find the woman’s family because little is known about her. She said Ms Maia provides contradictory information about where she comes from.
"She has been mentioning some names of places and the other patients say that the names are in Tanzania, but we don't know exactly where they are," the nurse said.
"She is now okay to be discharged after the waiver, but our worry is where she will go after here. She doesn't know anyone and also no one has ever come in to say that they are her relatives.”
Ms Maria claims that she hails from Tanzania and only came to Kenya four years ago after her Kenyan husband convinced her to relocate.
Maria Maria at the Nakuru Level Five Hospital. She is one of the beneficiaries of the five million waiver rolled out by the government of Nakuru in this photo taken on 31st August 2022
She said she was knocked down by a car as she tried to cross a road on her way from work, but she doesn't remember exactly where the accident occurred.
She claims she left her five children with their father (her first husband) in Chato, Tanzania, and married another man, who has never visited her in the hospital.
"I will be happy the day I will rejoin my family. I have been in the hospital for a long time. I left my five children back at home. I know my family is worried and they will be happy when they see me back," she said.
"The doctors have been good to me. They are dedicated to treating their patients and I was not exceptional despite being from a different country.”
Ms Maria was among 64 patients detained at the hospital over unpaid bills. They were released after Governor Kihika waived their bills totalling Sh5 million.
Speaking at the hospital on Tuesday during a fact-finding tour, the governor directed the department of Health to release the patients, aged between seven and 80, who had been discharged but were unable to settle their bills.
She said she had met the hospital’s board of management and after consultations recommended the waiver of the accumulated bills. She said her administration would allocate more funds to the hospital to cover the waiver.
She also ordered that all bodies detained at the hospital’s mortuary due to pending bills be released to the next of kin immediately.
"While doing rounds in the wards, one thing touched my heart. I found out that there are some patients who have stayed in the hospital for months despite completing treatment but have not been discharged after failing to raise the money to offset their bills,” she said.
“We have sat down with the relevant body and they will be released on a waiver so that they can go back to their families.”
Ms Kihika promised to work with the national government to ensure universal health access through the Nakuru Medicare card and to the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) cover. This, she said, would help eliminate out-of-pocket treatment expenses for Nakuru residents.
She pledged to recruit more nurses, clinical officers and doctors to boost health services, adding that better health services are a priority for her administration.
