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Horror of burn patients sprawling on floor at congested KNH – VIDEO

By Amina Wako April 13th, 2019 2 min read

It was a scene straight from the most desperate humanitarian crisis when Nairobi News team visited Kenyatta National Hospital this week.

Our team found children recovering from burns sleeping on mattresses spread the floor, the hospital’s ward too full to accommodate them.

Their parents and guardians shared the little space available as they fed the young ones during lunchtime.

Visitors have to remove their shoes to access the room. There was no space between the mattresses and our team had to walk on the mattress to reach the children.

The burns unit is located on fourth floor of the hospital. It’s where victims of fire are admitted. Once they become more stable they are moved to Ward 4D where they continue to recuperate.

NO BEDS

There are no sufficient beds in the ward. An available room with no beds is now full of patients. It was initially to hold 20 children,  but now has more than 100 patients with only three nurses to attend to them.

“It’s hard for three nurses to dress all those patients, they were seven but four were let go. They are currently understaffed and something like dressing the burns even family members can not help,” a source told Nairobi News.

Dr Stanley Kamau, KNH board member, said most burn patients at the hospital are abandoned children.

“Most of those children are abandoned kids, they have been left here for more than even a year,” he said.

Dr. Kamau admitted the hospital is currently overbooked.

“The bed capacity is at 10,000 and we can only accommodate 7,000. Currently, we have a problem. We are having a new building coming up with a bed capacity of 300, though not enough. We are trying to improve but we are hoping we will be able to do that in one or two years,” he added.