Roundup: Kenyan police search for missing mental patients amid health sector crisis

Kenyan police said on Tuesday that they are looking for 42 mentally ill patients who escaped on Monday from the Mathari Mental Hospital in Kenyan capital Nairobi after doctors and nurses joined the ongoing nationwide health workers' strike.

The hospital's Superintendent Dr Julius Ogato said when the patients failed to see the nurses who usually attend to them, they decided to leave their facilities on Monday.

"I don't know if they were incited but what we know is that they had not seen their nurses and some had not taken their medicine," he said on Tuesday.

Ogato said the crisis was biting, as they did not have personnel to take care of the 850 patients who are there.

Out of these, 200 are prisoners who are however in isolation wards. More prison warders and nurses were sent there to take care of the prisoners as part of efforts to address the crisis.

Some residents around the hospital including motorists and pedestrians along the highway reported seeing the mentally challenged patients jump over the hospital's perimeter fence.

A senior police officer told Xinhua on Tuesday that police had by Monday night arrested dozens of the mentally challenged patients who had escaped.

"We are looking for 42 missing mental patients after 20 others returned. We have deployed more police officers at the facility to avert any escape," the officer who did not want to be named said by telephone.

Among those who returned was boxer Conjestina Achieng who had been admitted there last week. She was the only woman who escaped from their ward before being found along Thika Superhighway an hour later on Monday.

The patients broke out of their wards after the nurses who usually attend to them failed to turn up, the hospital management said.

More than 5,000 doctors in public health facilities went on strike on Monday, demanding salary increments of up to 300 percent.

Doctors, through the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists' Union (KMPPDU), accuse the government of stalling the implementation of a 2013 collective bargaining agreement.

Ogato said when he reported to work he found the patients wandering in and out of the compound. They had overwhelmed security guards on duty.

"We deal with mental patients and these guards could not handle. Some stripped naked and left their uniforms in and out of the compound before escaping," he said.

He appealed for help to return the patients because they need special attention and care.

He said the hospital has 196 nurses and eight psychiatrists but only one pharmacist and two psychiatrists had turned up for duties on Monday.

Police were mobilized and came to help in pursuing the missing patients. Head of Nairobi Area police operations Abdalla Shariff said they had deployed a number of armed officers to various hospitals to provide security.

Witnesses said they saw the patients scale walls and jump out before some stripped naked and ran away to the streets and nearby Mathare slums.

"There is nothing we could have done because they ran away as soon as they were out. We don't know where they ended up but I fear some could be hit by vehicles," said a witness Sammy Mwangi.

Pictures taken at the site showed the patients jump from the two meter tall wall and wire donned in blue uniforms before escaping. They included those with acute conditions and under rehabilitation. Endit