Kenyan man devastated by mother's death, seeks help to clear hospital bills
Samson Waweru Kamau (center, black top), is consoled by friends in Lowell after the sudden loss of his mother in Kenya. Kamau is seeking community help to pay a hefty hospital bill left behind by his late mother at different hospitals where his family sought treatment. pic by H.Maina/Ajabu Media |
By Harrison Maina, Ajabu Africa, posted September 23, 2011
LOWELL, Mass.,_During his recent visit to meet Kenyans in the Diaspora, aspiring Kenyan presidential candidate, Peter Kenneth said that health care costs take in more than 60% of all the money remitted by Kenyans in the Diaspora to their motherland.
According to Kenneth, this is because the government of Kenya has not done enough to fix the sorry state of health care in the country, leaving many who fall sick to various ailments at the mercies of their relatives and community fund raising as a last resort to either get treatment, or worse still, to pay hospital bills left behind by those who succumb to disease.
In some cases, before the new Kenyan constitution, it was not uncommon to hear of tales where a hospital would refuse to release the body of a dead person until a family paid in full any owed fees.
Since there exists a very high number of Kenyans who do not have health insurance, largely due to high unemployment and to a significant level due to lack of education about the importance of health insurance, Kenyans in the Diaspora have ended up bearing the blunt of the matter when a friend, relative suffers a disease or dies from one.
One such Kenyan is a 24 year old Samson Waweru Kamau of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Kamau left his mother and his only brother who is younger than him in 1999 to join his father in the USA with the hopes of making a better future.
Waweru’s father Joseph Kamau Kuria had just arrived in the USA two years earlier in 1997 with the sole hope of making a better future for his family back in Kenya.
He therefore decided to organize for his son’s arrival in the USA so he could get an education that would open up be of use to him and his younger brother and mother back in Kenya.
The late Anne Muthoni Kamau, who died on Monday from blood cancer |
The father settled in the area of Lowell where he joined the rest of the Kenyan community who helped him settle well enough to be able to organize for his son who soon arrived as well and joined the Lowell High school.
But in 2005, after 8 years in the US, Kamau's father relocated back to Kenya soon after his son graduated from high school.
Since then, Kamau has gone on to join Middlesex community college in Lowell while still trying to make ends meet like thousands of other young Kenyan students in the USA.
But in a shocking twist of fate, Kamau recently received information from his family in Kenya that his loving mother Anne Muthoni Kamau (44) had been falling severely sick on and off since December of last year.
She visited several hospitals in Kenya including the Kiambu hospital, the Kenyatta National Hospital and the Nazareth Hospital in Nairobi for treatment.
According to Kamau , his mother was eventually diagnosed with acute Leukemia or cancer of the blood.
“It became very expensive for her to get treatment from one hospital to the other as many of them said that there s nothing much they could do,” Kamau told Ajabu Africa during an interview at an apartment he shares with several roommates from different countries of Africa.
Sensing the desperate situation his mother was facing, Kamau tried to get her to come to the US to seek further treatment but it did not work out.
To make things worse, his mother was still taking care of her own elderly mother who was suffering from breast cancer.
“It was too much for my mother and my grandmother to be facing cancer at the same time,” added th young man
His ailing mother continued to seek treatment in Kenyan hospitals where she left a trail of bills as doctors tried to keep her going as they searched for a matching donor.The bills amount close to 1 million Kenya Shillings( about $11,000).
Joseph Kamau Kuria, Kamau's father in a 2005 photo during a friend's party in Lowell shorly before he relocated back to Kenya |
In May of this year, Kamau ’s grandmother passed away, this was another setback for his mother.
Four months after the burial of his grandmother, Kamau received another call that said that his mother had succumbed to the cancer and passed away on Monday this week.
“It was very shocking to Kamau to hear the sad news especially only a few months is after his grandmother had died,” said timothy Kihiko, Waweru’s friend for many years.
Kihiko, who had visited his friend's ailing mother during a recent trip to Kenya back in April this year, said he attended the burial of Kuria’s grandmother, only to receive the sad news of the mother’s death this week.
He added that Kamau’s mother appeared to be making progress at recovery only for the sad news to come unexpected.
Kihiko sympathized with his friend since he had been unemployed for many years and only got a CNA job 6 months ago making it very difficult for him to help his family in Kenya with the financial disaster left behind by the sudden death.
Kamau's family hails from Githunguri village in Kiambu District of Central Kenya Province where his late mother was laid to rest this week.
Due to the seriousness of the matter, Kihiko and several of the young man’s friends have organized a fund raising committee that is requesting the Kenyan community in Lowell and elsewhere to assist the family raise funds to offset the close to 1 million Kenya shillings hospital bill left behind.
A fund raising ceremony is scheduled to take place on Sunday 09/25/2011 at the Kamau's Residence located at 231 Liberty Street, apt 103, Lowell MA 01851 starting at 3pm.
All Kenyans and well wishers are requested to attend for the sake of a family that is facing a situation that hits almost every family at one point or the other.
Funds can also be deposited at:
Lowell bank
Routing no. 211372064
Account no. 200265701
For more information, call:
Samson Waweru Kamau: 617-308-3980
Timothy Kihiko : 978-906-1045
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