The status of the ongoing pandemic is so dire that all hospitals that provide ICU services are stretched beyond limit. Now,hospitals are being forced to decide which ICU patients to let to die and which ones to save.
According to a report that appeared in The Star newspaper on Wednesday, on Tuesday, the Mbagathi Hospital, Kenyatta National Hospital and the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital in Nairobi were not admitting new patients. “We can only admit after discharging a patient who has recovered, or after a patient dies,” the paper quoted a doctor at the KUTRRH isolation wards.
On Monday, Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua had said that his county had no ICU or HDU beds. “All our Machakos Level 5 hospital’s 15 ICU beds & additional 12 HDU beds (Total 27) full with SEVERE ICU patients. All Machakos 42 ICU/HDU beds with oxygen points also full. People are waiting for others to die to get a bed. MASK, avoid BARS, be WISE. HAKUNA VITANDA,” he said.
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This comes as Kenya takes the lead in the rate of infection across the continent. On Tuesday for example, 25 more people have succumbed to the pandemic. Of the 25 deaths, three were reported in the last 24 hours and the other 22 are from late reports of people who passed on before but were yet to be reported. 1,127 more people tested positive for the virus.
The total number of deaths related to the pandemic in the country since March 2020 now stands at 2,048.