"How hospitals rip off Covid-19 patients"

hen the family of Laban Otieno studied the hospital bill for their 60-year-old father, they immediately noticed something amiss.

He was a diabetic patient who spent 10 days in the Intensive Care Unit of a private hospital in Nairobi where he died last month. Before and during admission, Laban took the mandatory Covid-19 tests, which came out negative. In the final Sh5 million bill, he was charged for daily personal protective equipment used by medical staff. The family said this was justified. The severity of the Covid-19 outbreak in Kenya has forced many hospitals to make it mandatory for health workers to wear protective gear when attending to all admitted patients.

However, the breakdown of the 20-page bill showed as much as 10 units of full PPE a day at Sh4,000 each. On one day, he was billed for 84 different N95 masks, each at Sh2,000.  "This was impossible, hospitals are just exploiting their patients and making a fortune out of their miseries in this national crisis," said Otieno's eldest daughter, July. The bill was renegotiated but the family still feels cheated. Hospitalisation during the pandemic appears to add huge out-of-pocket costs to non-Covid patients in private hospitals in form of tests and PPEs. Similar costs are being imposed on Covid-19 patients. The Star saw one bill from a city facility where a Covid-19 patient was charged for eight different sets of PPEs in a day, at Sh3,500 a set...

The Kenya Association of Private Hospitals defends private facilities saying their costs are based on market forces. KAPH secretary general Dr Abdi Mohammed said costs also depend on the status of hospitals. "It is like hotels. Hilton will definitely charge differently compared to a smaller hotel downtown, because of the clientele they attract. So it is important to check the costs before deciding which hospital to seek services from," he told the Star.