Ignore Twitter rants on Mandera terror victims, Health CS
By SAMUEL KARANJANewly appointed Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu has denied reports on social media that two victims of the recent terror attack on a bus in Mandera had been denied care at the Kenyatta National Hospital because they could not raise treatment fees.
“The two have been operated on and they will be well, the government will foot that bill to the total,” said the Health CS.
Dr Mailu was speaking to journalists on Sunday at the hospital when he visited the two patients.
The pair was airlifted from Mandera County after they were injured when a bus they were travelling in was attacked by Al-Shabaab terrorists.
Abdirahman Adan, 18, a student, is still at the hospital’s ICU but in stable condition. He was shot at least four times in the stomach.
The other patient, 34-year-old Salah Sabdow Farah, a primary school deputy headteacher also sustained gunshot wounds on his buttocks and is responding well to treatment.
The hospital bill for the two men, who were admitted to KNH on December 22, will be waived, said Dr Mailu.
They were shot when they confronted the terrorists as they tried to separate Muslims from Christians who were travelling in the bus that was headed to Mandera from Nairobi.
KNH chief executive Lily Koros, who was with the CS during the visit, said the two patients would be allowed to go home once they heal and are no longer in danger.