Patients now turn to the web for drugs due to the shortcomings

For Adelight Okumu, a 30-year-old mother of one from Kwanza constituency, life has become a delicate dance of survival and desperation.

Her world, one shaped by crutches, pain, and an unrelenting nerve disease, has been thrown into deeper turmoil by a health crisis that continues to erode public confidence in the country’s already strained healthcare system.

A four-year battle with a debilitating neurological condition has left Okumu dependent on physiotherapy and regular hospital visits.

However, with Kenya’s public health sector brought to its knees by the protracted shortcomings of the Social Health Authority (SHA), Okumu is one of thousands of patients now turning to the vast, unregulated internet in search of life-sustaining treatment.

“I was surprised when I woke up one day and was unable to talk. I used sign language, sometimes pointing and writing on paper, to communicate. It was terrible. Thank God and the doctors who put me on physiotherapy, and I regained my speech,”  Okumu he recounts, her voice quivering but steady.

Her illness began after an extended stay in the Intensive Care Unit at Kenyatta National Hospital.

Nerve damage

Though discharged with a hopeful prognosis, her health rapidly declined. A wave of fever and pain was followed by the grim realisation that muscle atrophy and nerve damage were robbing her of her physical independence.

Her speech returned after six agonising months of therapy but her legs still fail her.

And now, with health workers on strike and facilities like Kitale Referral Hospital closed or operating at skeletal levels, even the little progress she made is slipping away.

“The SHA has reversed the healing process,” she says with quiet anguish. “I used to attend physiotherapy twice a week — Tuesdays and Thursdays. But now I can’t. The hospitals are closed, and I can’t afford to have a private doctor visit me at home.”

The SHA has not only cut her off from essential services but pushed her into the perilous world of self-prescription.

With few alternatives, she now relies on online searches and social media forums for guidance on what drugs to take an option fraught with risks.

“The last time I searched for medication online, I got conflicting information. One site recommended a painkiller, another warned against it. But when you’re desperate, you try anything,” she says. 

Her situation is emblematic of a broader rural healthcare crisis, where access is not just a matter of distance but also of economics.

With specialists few and far between, and private neurologists in nearby Eldoret charging between Sh5,000 to Sh10,000 per visit, Okumu is left with no feasible medical option.

Only option

“Public hospitals would be ideal, but the strike has shut them down. I’m stuck,” she sighs.

This has left thousands in limbo particularly those in rural or marginalised regions, where public hospitals are the only option.

To make matters worse, private hospitals have turned away SHA-insured patients, citing massive unpaid debts.

“This has crippled my daughter. Even though we are insured through SHA, the hospitals don’t want to accept it. We are stuck between a failed public system and private hospitals that don’t care unless you pay upfront,” says Hellen Okumu, Adelight’s mother. 

She pauses before adding, her voice nearly breaking, “Anyone with a good heart, please help my daughter get the treatment she needs.”

Across the country, similar stories abound. Social media have become makeshift clinics as desperate Kenyans seek medical advice in places never meant for clinical care.

From mothers looking up dosages for antibiotics to patients Googling exercises for stroke recovery, the internet is now the primary care provider for thousands.

But the dangers are palpable.

“Self-prescription can lead to adverse drug reactions, misuse of medication, and worsening of symptoms. People are taking medicines based on outdated or incorrect information, often from forums that lack medical oversight,” warns Lydia Chemutai, a neurologist based in Eldoret.

Dr Chemutai adds that neurological patients are among the most vulnerable during the ongoing strike.

“Many of these patients require consistent, long-term therapy. Disrupting their regimen even for a few weeks can reverse years of progress.”

This concern is echoed by global research. A study published by The Lancet Neurology in 2023 found that more than three billion people worldwide live with some form of neurological condition.

Leading cause

These illnesses have now overtaken other non-communicable diseases as the leading cause of disability and death globally.

According to the study, more than 80 per cent of neurological-related deaths and health loss occur in low- and middle-income countries.

In many of these regions, including Kenya, there is a severe shortage of neurological professionals.

Back in Kwanza, Okumu knows these statistics all too well. She has lived them.

“I want to work, to support my daughter and my younger sister. But how can I, if I can’t even walk to the bathroom on my own?”  She says, glancing at the walls of her modest home.

Okumu’s daughter, barely eight, has grown up watching her mother struggle with tasks most take for granted.