Umoja, Kayole residents cry for better service at Mama Lucy Hospital
Ever since Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital opened its doors a few years ago, nothing positive has been said about it, from luck of doctors, unfriendly nurses to its poor services.
Residents of Eastlands area of Nairobi where the hospital is located are now appealing to the Government to help them out.
All government-run hospital are meant to offer services at a cheaper cost, yet lack medicines and machines that are non-functional is what Mama Lucy Hospital is best known for.
The story from all those interviewed by Nairobi News follows a similar narrative: the hospital staff are not only cold and unwelcoming but plain rude despite there being a Customer Desk at the entrance..
The patients’ only saving grace is from the doctors who are said to be friendly.
A certain Mr Kamau narrated his ordeal at the hospital. After paying his consultation fee he had to wait for almost 2 hours for his brother to be attended to.
When he finally got tom see the doctor he was advised him to go across the street for laboratory test since going to the hospital’s lab meant waiting for up to 24 hours before getting the results.
LABORATORY TEST
Ironically, the entire hospital has posters advising patients not to go for laboratory test anywhere else because the hospital provides all the services.
Before he walked his brother across the street Mr Kamau decided to see for himself and true to the doctor’s words the machines in the lab were out of service.
Across the streets the laboratories charged upto 5 times what the hospital is supposed to charge.
Within 30 minutes his brother’s results were ready and they walked back to the hospital to again wait for the doctor, who finally gave a prescription and directed them to get the medicine from the hospital pharmacy.
But after waiting for 20 minutes at the pharmacy, the pharmacist told them that the only medicine available was paracetamol and advised them to go across the street and buy the rest of the medicine.
I asked him if he would go back again, he said despite spending more than Kshs 4,000 on medicine and tests he still would because he trusts the Doctors at Mama Lucy Hospital more than the estate clinics which misdiagnose people.