MP Shah Hospital explains Sh0.8m bill for patient's 12-hour stay

MP Shah Hospital. The hospital says the Sh858,355 bill was “interim” and had since been revised. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Through its Facebook and Twitter platforms, the hospital said despite the fact that Matilda Anyango did not stay in the facility for long, the bill was justified by medical procedures conducted on her when she was admitted with a stab wound.

  • “Any medical bill is not dictated only by the duration of stay in the hospital but by the extent and complexity of the medical procedures accorded to the patient,” the hospital said in a statement.

MP Shah Hospital in Nairobi has issued an explanation as to why it charged Sh800,000 for a patient who was admitted for about 12hours before she died but Kenyans are not having any of it.

Through its Facebook and Twitter platforms, the hospital said despite the fact that Matilda Anyango did not stay in the facility for long, the bill was justified by medical procedures conducted on her when she was admitted with a stab wound.

PROCEDURES

“Any medical bill is not dictated only by the duration of stay in the hospital but by the extent and complexity of the medical procedures accorded to the patient,” the hospital said in a statement.

“The breakdown of the bill has been provided to [Ms Anyango’s] family.”

A breakdown of the bill totalling to Sh858,355 was shared on Friday by activist Boniface Mwangi.

It showed that the hospital charged Sh105,000 for transfusion medicine, Sh157,285 as pharmacy charges, Sh100,000 for the anaesthetist, Sh300,000 for the surgeons among other expenses.

“MP Shah is demanding Sh858,355 from her very poor family. They have refused to release the body for burial,” posted Mr Mwangi last Friday.

The late Matilda Anyango's bill. PHOTO | COURTESY

MP Shah’s response said the patient had lost a lot of blood when she was taken to the facility, which is located at Nairobi’s Parklands area, on April 11.

“As with hospital protocol in which every patient has the right to emergency treatment, and due to her critical condition, she underwent emergency surgery by a multi-disciplinary team of surgeons. The patient was in a critical state and needed life support in our Intensive Care Unit,” the hospital said.

“Despite the best possible medical and surgical efforts, the patient succumbed to her injuries on April 12, 2018,” it added.

BED CHARGES

However, a section of social media users who replied to the hospital’s statement on its Facebook page were sceptical of the hospital’s levies, most notably the Sh42,600 it billed as bed charges.

“So, a bed for a single night is 42,000?” questioned Jevans.

“You should offer some assistance to such families. What is the point of keeping your doors open?” posed Imara.

“No health insurance will accept to pay that without proper query!” Njagi wrote.

“Can our MPs take up this matter,” stated Mbocha.

But Winrose offered a different view: “We’re here fighting and insulting a private entity (I don’t work for them) instead of asking what happened to our public health sector!”

Ms Anyango, 32, sustained a stab wound on her thigh in a robbery.

While heading to her home in Kangemi on the night of April 11, robbers who had been trailing her stabbed her as she took stairs to her house.