Some justice

One international organization did fight publicly for detained patients.

Researchers for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which acts to support women’s health around the world, were conducting a study of maternal health care in Kenya in early 2012 when they learned of the cases of Maimuna Awuor Omuya and Margaret Oliele.

Unable to pay her bill at Pumwani Maternity Hospital after the delivery of her sixth child, Omuya and her baby were imprisoned along with more than 60 other women in a damp ward, in September 2010. She often slept on the wet ground next to a flooded toilet. Mother and child were released after nearly a month, but only when one of Omuya’s friends appealed to the mayor to intervene.

Two months later, Oliele arrived at Pumwani. During a botched cesarean section, doctors left a pair of scissors inside Oliele’s stomach; a second surgery was needed to remove the scissors and she suffered a ruptured bladder and a blood infection. When she couldn’t pay her hospital fees, Oliele was taken to a detention ward.

“I tried to escape, but when I got to the main gate, I was taken by the security guards,” Oliele said. “I had no clothes on and still had the catheter in my stomach. The guards then forcefully took me back to the hospital where they handcuffed me to a bed, while claiming that I had gone mad.” She was held for six days.

Center for Reproductive Rights lawyers resolved to take up the cause of detained patients, bringing suit on behalf of Omuya and Oliele.

“These were two very appalling cases and their treatment was very degrading,” said Evelyne Opondo, a senior regional director at the center who oversaw the case.

They won. In September 2015, Kenya’s High Court ruled the women’s detention violated numerous human rights enshrined in the constitution and was therefore illegal. The High Court described the women’s detention as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”

The court further ordered the Kenyan government to “take the necessary steps to protect all patients from arbitrary detention.”

But , it appears little has changed. “People are still being detained,” Oliele said. “They should stop treating people like animals and treat them as fellow human beings.”

Neither Omuya nor Oliele have been paid the damages awarded to them by the court: Omuya was to receive $14,842 from the hospital while Oliele was to receive $4,948.