It’s an open season for looting in the Kitui county ministry of health, as Governor Malombe’s brother-in-law and chief officer for Drugs and Medical Supplies Ministry of Health and Sanitation Aggrey Kamba and croonies hatch another genius ploy to loot from the poor patients after swindling funds meant for drugs and laboratory services.
As Kituians stare at zero drugs in the biggest hospital in the county, the Kitui Referral Hospital, and a medical lab that does nothing in terms of testing due to what they justify as ‘lack of reagents in the lab’; CO Drugs and Medical Supplies Kamba and co. have come up with a new technique to cunningly steal from the poor patients in the KCRH.
According to documents in our possession, on 26th February 2024 the county government of Kitui secretly entered into an agreement with Muthale Mission Hospital, a private medical facility, to EXCLUSIVELY provide laboratory services to the patients in the largest government health facility in the county; unbeknown to both the public and the Kitui county assembly health committee.
The deal, that was signed by the KCRH medical Supretendent Dr. John Mungai, Barnabas Kyalo the hospital administrator(for KCRH), and; Charles Kimanzi and Samuel Gitau(for Muthale Mission Hospital) on the 21st February saw all patients forced to seek laboratory services from the private catholic -owned medical facility.
According to a memo circulated to all KCRH hospital staff, acting on any lab results from any other private facility will culminate in immediate and severe disciplinary action.
Patients now are being forced to pay exhorbitant amounts of money for lab tests that cost more than half the charged prices in other private facilities in town, failure to which they won’t be attended to by the KCRH staff who are afraid of disciplinary actions.
Looking at the charge sheets for Muthale Mission Hospital, a simple test that goes for less than Ksh. 300 in most of the private laboratories has been bloated to a whooping Ksh. 3000; with the difference allegedly being split between the CO Aggrey Kamba, the Med sup Dr. Mungai, the hospital administrator Mr. Kyalo, and the head of KCRH laboratory.
Mpesa paybill numbers for Muthale Mission Hospital have been pasted all over the KCRH notice boards, waiting bays and wards, directing all patients to pay for the lab services directly to the private facility, and notifying anyone that any other lab results will not be accepted in the public institution.
When the Kitui Newspaper reporter sought audience with the hospital administration this morning, the medical Supretendent Dr. John Mungai brushed the story off by saying that Kitui county has been partnering with the mission hospital for ages, even equipping and staffing them time to time. The Hospital administrator Barnabas Kioko also reiterated the same, quoting a time that even the county government of Kitui allocated an ambulance to the private facility.
The duo defended the act by saying that they are bestowed with the power to make clinical and administrative decisions on the hospital, be it in the law or not, when our reporter asked about the involvement of the public in such cost-implication endeavor.
In a telephone interview with the Kitui Newspaper, the KCRH Lab-in charge Abdulmalik Musembi, he confirmed the existence of such an agreement, arguing that the move is meant to offer an alternative backup lab for the institution. He however disclosed that the move was aimed at curbing the outflow of patients to other private labs, which he accused of being owned or run by medical staff in the county referral hospital. He however expressed his concerns at the exhorbitant fees the patients are being subjected to at the Muthale Mission Hospital, saying that he wasn’t aware of the overcharge until our reporter called him about it.
We couldn’t reach both the chief officer and the county assembly speaker for comments by the time of going to press because their phones went unanswered. The patients in KCRH and the larger public are however calling upon the governor to step in and tame the dire situation at the referral hospital, as they accuse the management of crippling the lab services in the hospital so that they can mint money from the poor public through the overcharged and mandatory lab services at the Muthale Mission Hospital. A sneak-peak into the hospital payment records have showed disturbing statistics that 95% of the lab tests done in March this year were performed by the Muthale Mission Hospital Kitui town satellite clinic, and the amounts are staggering to millions of shillings.
The Neema Hospital has been the backup laboratory for the KCRH for over a decade, but the strict exclusivity has never been heard of since devolution; although both the medical Supretendent and the hospital administrator have gone on record saying that the move to exclusively outsource the lab services in the single private facility has both the blessings of governor Malombe and his brother-in-law the Drugs and Medical Supplies chief officer Aggrey Kamba.
Kitui Newspaper 