Nairobi hospital refuses to hand over body over unpaid bills

Nairobi, Sep 20 (IANS) In a case of hospital cruelty, the body of a teenager who died of kidney failure was being held by a Nairobi hospital for seven months due to unpaid bills.

The Nairobi Women's Hospital is holding the body of Beretta Reri, an orphan, until the family pays hospital bills amounting to about $25,000.

Caren Achieng, Reri's grandmother, says she has done all in her power to raise the money including begging but could not raise the amount.

Johnson Mwithi, Nairobi Women's Hospital's Chief Officer of Business Development, said the hospital reviews each of their debtors on their own merit and if the debtor is unable to pay, they classify it as bad debt and write it off, Daily Nation reported.

Mwithi said that in Reri's case, the hospital has been "handling several stakeholders who have been exploring different ways of offsetting the bill and are not at that point of declaring this a bad debt".

Achieng took in the late teen in 2005, after her mother died of throat cancer and lives with her other daughter who has five children.

Reri died in February 2016 of kidney failure.