Kenya: Kisumu County Govt Explains Patients Seen Sleeping On the Floor At JOOTRH

Kisumu — The Kisumu County Government has moved to allay fears that Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral hospital lacks enough patient beds forcing patients to sleep on the corridors and walkways.

This is after pictures emerged on social media showing patients sleeping on the floor.

In a statement, the county through the communication department claimed the hospital beds were overstretched since the number of patients who turned for the free orthopedic surgery outweighs the number of beds.

The head of the department John Oywa says the referral hospital has undergone facelift in the recent past with state-of-the-art medical equipment, thus receiving high number of patients from across the country.

“What is doing rounds on social media is propaganda, some of the patients were waiting for surgery,” he said.

Oywa says other patients who had gone through successful surgeries missed beds for rest forcing them to sleep on the floor.

However, the county was blamed for the poor services at the only referral hospital in the region.

George Collins, a human rights activist faulted the county claiming that the pictures depict patients who are admitted at the hospital but lacks beds.

“The free surgery ended like yesterday and the county cannot hide on that, it’s a similar occurrence even before the surgery,” he said.

Oywa says the situation is temporary and the county is working round the clock to transfer the affected patients to a new unit.

“We are transferring them to a 60-bed capacity ward in a new unit which is under construction at 95 percent,” he said.

The referral hospital has a bed capacity of 550 beds.

Oywa said the bed capacity will soon increase to 850 beds in the coming days.

He further noted that the county is equipping sub county hospitals to reduce the over reliance of the referral hospital.