Kenya: Hospitals detain patients until they pay

A father pleads to see his two-year-old son, but guards block him because he can't afford the hospital bills. At Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, and at an astonishing number of other hospitals around the world, if you don't pay up, you don't go home. During several August visits to Kenyatta National Hospital, The Associated Press witnessed armed guards in military fatigues standing watch over patients, and saw where detainees slept on bedsheets on the floor in cordoned-off rooms. All despite a court ruling years ago that found the detentions were illegal. Mothers and babies are sometimes separated. Even death does not guarantee release: Kenyan hospitals and morgues are holding hundreds of bodies until families can pay their loved ones' bills, government officials say. Robert Wanyonyi was shot and paralyzed in a robbery more than a year ago. Kenyatta will not allow him to leave the hospital because he cannot pay his bill of nearly 4 million Kenyan shillings (US $39,570). He is trapped in his fourth-floor bed, unable to go to India, where he believes doctors might help him. Kenya's ministry of health and Kenyatta canceled several scheduled interviews with the AP and declined to respond to repeated requests for comment.