Sonko reveals struggle to get treatment for Covid-19 patient
Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has shared an embarrassing ordeal where he struggled to get a hospital bed for a member of his staff who’d tested positive for Covid-19.
Sonko, who once distributed Covid-19 care packages that included alcohol, highlighted how his team went to three different city hospitals in search of admission all in vain.
“Covid-19 is serious. We have checked all city hospitals for beds. Luckily, we finally found one at Ruai Family Hospital. Have your masks on and sanitise,” he said.
Jamaa hii Covid imekuwa mbaya Aga khan, Nairobi hosi, Kenyatta referral hosi, Mbagathi full no covid beds. But tumeget bed Ruai family hospital for my staff Francis Wambua. Get well soon. Vaeni mask na musanitise pic.twitter.com/CipJhr0zz9
— Mike Sonko (@MikeSonko) August 10, 2021
Sonko explained how he’d unsuccessfully sought admission at various medical facilities within Nairobi, but most were full.
His experience comes at a time health experts have warned that the pandemic is not yet under control.
StatNairobi County is registering the highest number of cases and it is where some of the best hospitals are reported to be filled up, revealing a picture of the nation’s hospital crisis in the coming days.
“It is really going to be difficult to maintain existing standards of care for the sickest patients because you find out that it is in Nairobi — with the huge number of patients — and it is the same area where the ICUs are completely full or fewer than five percent beds available,” said Dr Ahmed Kalebi, CEO of Pathologists Lancet Kenya, one of the private labs testing for Covid-19 in Nairobi.
On Tuesday, 1,183 people tested positive for Covid-19 from a sample size of 8,144 bringing the total number of positive cases to 213,756 and a cumulative number of tests to 2,205,159.
The positivity rate now stands at 14.5 percent.