Mortuaries Are Getting Full, State Busted For Lying On COVID-19 Curve

The gov­ern­ment’s claim that the Covid-19 curve is flat­ten­ing is un­true, the doc­tors’ union has said.

Cen­tral Kenya sec­re­tary gen­eral of Kenya Med­i­cal Prac­ti­tion­ers, Phar­ma­cists and Den­tists Union Gor Goody chal­lenged the gov­ern­ment to do a mor­tal­ity au­dit and it would re­alise the coun­try is still los­ing many pa­tients to the dis­ease.

The gov­ern­ment in its daily Covid-19 brief­ings has been in­di­cat­ing a de­crease in the rate of in­fec­tions.

Goody who spoke on Gukena FM said peo­ple suf­fer­ing from non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases such as hy­per­ten­sion, di­a­betes, can­cer and the aged are get­ting Covid-19 and dy­ing with­out be­ing tested.

“Mor­tu­ar­ies are ab­nor­mally full, which means that the mor­tal­ity rate has in­creased. But we are not get­ting the right sta­tis­tics. We are only claim­ing that the curve is flat­ten­ing. How is it flat­ten­ing?” she posed.

NO CA­PAC­ITY

She said the coun­try has no ca­pac­ity to con­duct in­creased test­ing due to short­age of staff and re­sources.

That is why the num­ber of in­fec­tions given out daily by the gov­ern­ment is re­duc­ing.

Goody said those who are tested take one to four weeks to get their re­sults.

She said the num­ber of in­fec­tions should be go­ing up es­pe­cially af­ter the gov­ern­ment lifted move­ment re­stric­tions lead­ing to high ur­ban-ru­ral mi­gra­tion.

Goody added that doc­tors are de­mo­ti­vated as their salaries are al­ways de­layed and they are sup­plied with in­suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tive gear to fight Covid-19.

She said, cur­rently, health­care work­ers are us­ing pro­tec­tive equip­ment do­nated by the pri­vate sec­tor, adding that not all of the pro­tec­tive gears are of the right qual­ity.

“But we are ex­pected to at­tend the sick with the sub­stan­dard masks and per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ments (PPE),” she said on Thurs­day.

Both na­tional and most county gov­ern­ments have been claim­ing that they have enough pro­tec­tive equip­ment.

Goody said there is also a short­age of health­care work­ers, ford­ing ex­pec­tant and el­derly work­ers to work in Covid-19 cen­tres.

“We know very well that ex­pec­tant women and the el­derly health work­ers are not sup­posed to work in hos­pi­tals,” she said.

Health­care work­ers, she added, also lack med­i­cal in­sur­ance mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for them to af­ford the very health care ser­vices they pro­vide.

Na­tional Hospi­tal In­sur­ance Fund does not cover Covid-19 pa­tients af­ter the WHO de­clared the dis­eases a pan­demic.

She also cited cor­rup­tion in the Min­istry of Health, such as the case of Kemsa, as an­other chal­lenge that has been af­fect­ing sup­ply of PPE and other equip­ment.

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