A crisis is
looming in Kirinyaga County as dialysis machines at the Kerugoya County
Referral Hospital continue to break down, leaving hundreds of kidney disease
patients stranded.
The machines, which are critical for filtering waste from the blood of patients with kidney failure, have been failing one after another for the past five months.
Currently, only two out of the eight dialysis machines are operational. This has forced many patients to either wait for long hours or seek treatment in far-off hospitals.
Among the affected is 76-year-old Beatrice Mureithi, who has endured the pain of chronic kidney disease without proper treatment due to the machine shortage.
The Kerugoya Level 5 Hospital, the only major referral facility in the county, has seen a steady breakdown of its dialysis machines. Patients like Beatrice and Amos Wanjau are bearing the brunt of this collapse.
“When I went there, I was told not to go because there was no space. There were only two machines, and patients were many,” Beatrice explained.
She added that out of the original eight machines, six have broken down and haven’t been repaired. This has led to reduced dialysis time per patient.
“We were supposed to go for four hours, then we went for three, and then two. A machine that is supposed to run for four hours, and you go for only two, then you’ve only done half the work, so it doesn’t help at all,” she said.
The crisis caught the attention of Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango, who is now calling for urgent repairs of the machines.
“Kidney disease is a condition where, if the blood is not cleaned in time, the patient becomes weaker and weaker. At a time like this, I don’t understand why there are still so many funds in the Kirinyaga County account,” said Senator Murango.
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru, however, maintained that it is the responsibility of the national government to purchase dialysis machines through the NESS (National Equipment Support Scheme) programme.
She added that new machines will be delivered to the hospital on Wednesday.
