Hours had barely passed after last month’s brutal terror attack on 14 Riverside when Hospitals started making appeals for blood donors. Giant taxi service provider, Uber started offering free rides to hospitals for donors to go save life.
This has always been a norm in Kenya, hospitals always make passionate appeals for blood after every tragedy. The problem is that, the victims never get the blood freely despite the fact that it has been donated.
In May, KNBTS director Dr Josephine Githaiga condemned the growing illegal trade in transfusion blood in Kenya. Dr Githaiga disclosed that some public hospitals are selling a pint of blood for up to Sh3,000 while critical condition patients are being asked for bribes to access blood.
“Blood is supposed to be free. All Kenyans should be able to access blood even at the most critical times,” she said.
This has left hospitals and patients to source own blood from replacement donors or a growing black market. In October, for example, a health worker in Kisumu was convicted for receiving a Sh28,000 bribe to arrange a blood transfusion for a patient.
Hospitals are reporting increasing conflicts between staff and relatives whose patients go without transfusion even after relatives have donated blood.
Systems put in place 21 years ago to assure Kenyans of safe and sufficient blood have failed, with the country now facing life-threatening shortages.