Begging for life: Cancer patient's daily journey from Nyeri to SHA offices

 

For the past four months, 70-year-old Gatamu Waigwa has risen at 4 a.m. in Nyeri to board a matatu to Nairobi.

His destination: the Social Health Authority (SHA) offices, where he spends entire days until dusk, pleading with officials to save his life.

His crime? Being a cancer patient caught in Kenya's chaotic transition from the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to SHA.

The retired anaesthetist's ordeal began when SHA slashed his oncology benefits from Sh600,000 under NHIF to just Sh400,000 – a reduction he says will kill him. Despite promises of a Sh550,000 oncology package, SHA has refused to honour the full amount, leaving Waigwa Sh200,000 short of what he needs to survive.

"I have two weeks left to finish the cancer medication I am currently taking, which costs Sh92,800, as well as injections totalling around Sh10,000," Waigwa told the Nation on Tuesday. "If I don't have them, according to my doctors, the cancer will spread and kill me. I do not want to die."

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