The doctors at the private hospital where she had sought treatment told her and her distraught parents that the bullet, still loadged in her body, was too close to her spinal cord, making operation “highly risky”. If anything, they informed them, they lacked the equipment needed to perform the operation. The only option, they were further informed, was to have the operation done abroad. Estimated cost? Sh6 million.

A day after the story was published, the writer of the story received an e-mail from Dr Peter Bird, a surgeon at Kijabe AIC Hospital. He wrote that from looking at the X-rays (we had published them) there was nothing complicated about the surgery as had been claimed, even though he would need to take a look at the scans and X-rays to be certain. To cut a long story short, Anne had the surgery on August 9, this month, at Kijabe AIC Hospital – surgery that took a mere 20 minutes, and which cost her family a total of Sh18,560.

Doctor Bird, the head of surgery at the hospital, would later explain to the writer that any reasonably trained surgeon could have performed the “simple” surgery. In his opinion, there were two possible reasons for referring Anne abroad: medical incompetence, or corruption. Reason number two, he said, a common scam in our medical institutions, was more likely. This is where unethical medical staff are paid by overseas medical facilities to refer patients for treatment that is readily available here, and at a fraction of the quoted cost.

[quote=Lolest!]

http://www.nation.co.ke/...1232-hivpn9z/index.html[/quote]
Corrupt professionals are the worst , they actually steal from theor clients

Some of them arent corrupt. Sometimes, it's probably inexperience or incompetence. The rule of thumb anytime you are faced with a serious medical condition is to seek second, third and fourth opinions.