MEDICAL ERRORS MAYBE THE SECOND LEADING KILLER IN KENYA AFTER MALARIA.

In a span of 5 years, I have attended burial arrangements of close to 7 people who succumbed to preventable doctors errors with one being of a very close family friend who had lung cancer. The cancer was not at its advanced stage but his specialized doctors were very unkind than the cancer.

Kenyan doctors have this appetite for money and they squeeze it to the last cent without feeling a thing for the patient. They could refer my friend to very unnecessary countless tests that in a short period had adverse effects on his Kidneys. There was a time I was worried that Kidney malfunction will kill him before the cancer does. This was one morning when I paid him a visit and his body had turned pale, his urine yellow. His doctors had dedicated all their energies to the cancer without taking notice of the harm they were causing to another important organ, the kidney. The error could have been avoided if the medics were more human and mindful of the patient not the very many tests and scans. Though we lost our friend, not sure if to cancer or errors, medical error is now a leading killer in the country.

 

Kenya leading newspaper, Daily Nation carried an exclusive coverage of how medics are destroying their patients’ lives through carelessness and incompetence on a daily basis. One touching story is one of a woman whose breast was chopped off after a medic misdiagnosed her at a leading referral hospital to be having breast cancer, an ailment that never was. Although she is tortured and has a genuine case, the system punishes her through its complexity and inefficiency. She is required to pay 2,000 shillings to lodge a complaint to KMPDB, a board that has found only ONE doctor guilty of misconduct in 19 years.

In Kenya, the numerous causes of misdiagnosis are not limited to appetite for money. They also result from unreliable detection gadgets, medics’ complacency, and limited knowledge due to under specialization or even insufficient interaction with the patient. To those who have been to a public clinic, you might have seen a medic give same medication i.e. painkiller to all his/her patients without doing any tests. From common cold to Malaria. The results of any of these are in most cases catastrophic.

Kenya health system is broken. Those at the helm don’t care. Reporting system are unfriendly. Big hospitals are in for profit and care less about your wellbeing. When they see that insurance, they want each cent. They can schedule you for a surgery even where none is necessary. What do you say of a child’s friend who was admitted, one night and charged 200,000 Kenya shillings for tonsillitis just because he produced an insurance card?. What do you say of a medic who recalled all receipts she had charged for a child’s treatment and doubled the invoice after the mother removed a card?. What do you say of a close relative who was admitted for one month, administered medication for an illness that was never there until we sought a second opinion?. That’s our country friend.

The aforementioned cases underscores the need of general public to cushion themselves from being send to early grave by seeking second opinions, sourcing information about a condition, ask questions about anything medical that touches on your health. Stay informed. Live long.

However, as a medical consumer, I try my very best to forgive unavoidable human mistakes, but avoidable medical errors break my heart as more often than not, the result is loss of human life.

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