MPs probe Medanta Hospital in referral-for-bribes scandal

Health ministry has been investigating medics for sending patients to India in return for money. PHOTO | FILE 

By STELLAR MURUMBA and LYNET IGADWAH

In Summary

• The National Assembly’s Health Committee opened investigations into the hospital after a former employee, Brian Onyango, filed a petition accusing the facility’s managers of exploiting the patients.

Parliament has opened investigations into the activities of Medanta Africare — the hospital accused of notoriously referring patients to India in return for a Sh200,000 kickback per patient.

The National Assembly’s Health Committee launched the investigations after initial reports indicated that the Kenyan hospital’s Indian affiliate is properly registered but has been using different names in contracts with medical regulatory bodies.

The reports indicate that while the hospital’s certificate of incorporation reads Africare Limited, its Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB) registration certificate reads Africare Limited Hospital.

KMPDB chief executive Daniel Yumbia Thursday told Parliament that the Board had “not issued any licence to a facility called “Medanta”.

The hospital, which is contracted to offer medical services to National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) contributors is registered with the public health insurer as Africare Limited (Medanta Hospital), according to NHIF chief executive Gitau Mwangi. 

Mr Yumbya and Mr Mwangi were testifying before the committee, whose sessions followed an inspection visit to the facility in Nairobi’s Westlands area.

Parliament opened investigations into the hospital after a former employee, Brian Onyango, filed a petition accusing the facility’s managers of exploiting the patients.

MPs established during the visit that Africare’s outpatient facility is an affiliate of India’s Medanta Hospital and wondered whether the use of multiple names was a ploy to escape responsibility in the event a legal suit is filed against it.

READ: 880 doctors under probe in referral-for-bribe scandal

Parliament also heard that the troubled facility is not in any way connected to New Delhi’s Medanta Hospital. An employee who worked at the facility for four years said the management had “knowingly” misled patients to believe that it is a branch of the Indian hospital”.

MPs also poked holes into the KMPDB’s decision to elevate the facility to Level Four Status despite its outpatient status.

Mr Yumbya said the decision to elevate Africare Limited Hospital to Level Four was reached after the board inspected it as required by law. Any medical facility registered as Level Four should have admission facilities and offer national referral services.

Africare, however, does not have wards and has been operating as a “day care” facility that serves between 250 and 300 patients a day.

The facility, which claims to offer laparotomy (surgical procedure of the abdomen) does not have wards, begging the question of how it manages to offer the service that ordinarily requires patents to get admitted for a number of days.

The committee promised to institute punitive action, including disbandment, against the medical board, should it establish at the end of the inquiry that it failed to protect Kenyans against rogue practitioners