Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital has been turned into a corruption den by officials out to enrich themselves at the expense of public good. On the spotlight is Iqbal Khandwala, the hospital’s CEO. Last month, he was forced to rescind a decision to force patients to pay deposits before being admitted to the public health facility.
This is after Commission for Human Rights and Justice lobby group through its director Julius Ogogo threatened to sue the Mombasa county government for attempting to privatize services at the health facility secretly in a move that would lock out thousands of poor patients.
According to Kwandwala’s internal memo dated November 24, 2020, the move to force patients to pay upfront was supposedly meant to mitigate the effects of waivers in the hospital. “In order to mitigate the effects of waivers in the hospital, the CGTRH has directed that selected cases will be required to pay an upfront deposit before being admitted.
All surgeries will be Sh40,000 and medical cases Sh20,000,” read the letter addressed to casualty, wards, finance and billing sections. Emergency cases were to pay the amount within 48 hours of admission. The charges were to take effect from December 1, 2020. But a week later on November 30, 2020, the hospital cancelled the earlier memo after realising that the matter would be challenged in court and become a political hot potato for the Governor Hassan Joho administration.
“Upon further discussions, it has been decided that the memo on payment of deposits stand suspended to allow further deliberations and categorisation of the procedures and charges,” said the second memo signed by M Ochola for Khandwala. The issue is said to have generated controversy in the hospital with some doctors pointing out that the move to charge patients was suspicious since a Mombasa philanthropist, a one Asu of Mombasa Cement, had stationed his employees in the hospital to offset bills of those unable to pay.
“If Mombasa Cement has been paying for patients who are unable to settle their bills why would the hospital administration be in hurry to introduce charges during this difficult period. This is part of the conspiracy of the county government looters,” a medic said. The source further said Mombasa Cement has put up an oxygen plant at the hospital at a cost of Sh50 million for free and it is awaiting commissioning. Surprisingly, the same project has been advertised for by the Mombasa county government and bidders are supposed to have sent their bids before December 16 2020.
The tender number CGM/CGTRH/03/2020-2021 for supply, installation, testing and commissioning of an oxygen plant at the hospital is to be awarded yet the project has been undertaken for free by the cement company. It is claimed the funds once the tender is awarded, will be looted since auditors will be shown the cement company project. This is similar to what happened when Mombasa Cement provided garbage collection trucks for free in 2014/15 but the same was secretly billed to the county government, a move that forced the owners to take back their trucks.
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