Eng'iti
Elder Lister
Sick Kenyan students stuck in India as Edu Afya cover dries up
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
By Hellen Shikanda
Health and Science Reporter
Nation Media Group
“I live like a bird, but at least a bird has a nest on a tree – I have no place to lay my head when night falls,” Tophister Ong’onga tells the “Nation” via a phone call.
For two months now, Tophister, her daughter Rachael and a son have been in India to seek medical attention at the Sanar International Hospital.
On the other side of the phone, she is distracted by people with a heavy Indian accent. They are shouting at her, but she is focused on our telephone interview.
“I am sorry. They are asking me to move my luggage elsewhere. I don’t have a place to sleep for the night. My mind is full and I don’t know where to go. At the top of my mind is a place I’d get to prepare porridge for myself, my ailing daughter and my son who is by my daughter’s bedside,” narrates Tophister.
She left Kenya for India after a doctor at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital referred her to the facility when her daughter’s hip bones started degenerating due to sickle cell disease.
She was assured that the Edu Afya Medical Scheme — a high school student medical cover that was under the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) — would cater for her treatment cost.
Read: Students’ health plan on verge of collapse
Rachael was born 18 years ago, and when she turned three, she was diagnosed with sickle cell disease. Last year, she should have completed her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education at St Anne’s Girls’ Kisoko in Busia County but she was in a hospital bed when her classmates were sitting the national exams.
She is one of the 3,000 candidates who registered for last year’s national exams but missed out because of sickness...
nation.africa
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Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
By Hellen Shikanda
Health and Science Reporter
Nation Media Group
“I live like a bird, but at least a bird has a nest on a tree – I have no place to lay my head when night falls,” Tophister Ong’onga tells the “Nation” via a phone call.
For two months now, Tophister, her daughter Rachael and a son have been in India to seek medical attention at the Sanar International Hospital.
On the other side of the phone, she is distracted by people with a heavy Indian accent. They are shouting at her, but she is focused on our telephone interview.
“I am sorry. They are asking me to move my luggage elsewhere. I don’t have a place to sleep for the night. My mind is full and I don’t know where to go. At the top of my mind is a place I’d get to prepare porridge for myself, my ailing daughter and my son who is by my daughter’s bedside,” narrates Tophister.
She left Kenya for India after a doctor at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital referred her to the facility when her daughter’s hip bones started degenerating due to sickle cell disease.
She was assured that the Edu Afya Medical Scheme — a high school student medical cover that was under the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) — would cater for her treatment cost.
Read: Students’ health plan on verge of collapse
Rachael was born 18 years ago, and when she turned three, she was diagnosed with sickle cell disease. Last year, she should have completed her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education at St Anne’s Girls’ Kisoko in Busia County but she was in a hospital bed when her classmates were sitting the national exams.
She is one of the 3,000 candidates who registered for last year’s national exams but missed out because of sickness...
Sick Kenyan students stuck in India as Edu Afya cover dries up
Tale of misery and uncertainty as mothers left stranded with huge medical bills to pay.
nation.africa
