Parliament has turned its spotlight on two Eldoret hospitals over allegations of conducting questionable kidney transplants on foreign nationals.
St. Luke’s Orthopedic and Trauma Hospital and Oak Tree Hospital came under scrutiny on Thursday before the National Assembly’s Health Committee, where administrators admitted that several patients from Somalia had undergone transplant procedures at their facilities.
Dr. Silvia Nikita of St. Luke’s told MPs that five Somali nationals were among their kidney transplant patients. She explained that Oak Tree Medical Centre handled the identification and pairing of donors and recipients under a memorandum of understanding with St. Luke’s.
“The role of identification and pairing lies with Oak Tree Centre, for kidney and chronic diseases,” Dr. Nikita said, adding that most of the cases involved blood relatives.
Lawmakers, however, raised doubts over whether the hospitals had verified the claimed family ties, warning against possible exploitation and organ trafficking.
“We are not new to the fact that there has been a lot of talk about kidney selling,” said Seme MP James Nyikal. “We want assurance that what you are doing here follows national guidelines.”
The committee demanded detailed records of all transplant procedures, including the names, nationalities, and contacts of both donors and recipients. St. Luke’s disclosed that it had carried out 34 kidney transplants so far.
Hospital officials also acknowledged complications in some cases, including organ rejection, post-surgery bleeding, and one donor who developed acute kidney injury but later recovered. They further admitted that some patients had died after surgery.
Ndhiwa MP Martin Owino also questioned why St. Luke’s outsourced lab tests to Oak Tree and even sent samples to India and South Africa despite having an in-house lab and other accredited facilities available locally.
The probe is part of Parliament’s ongoing inquiry into alleged malpractice in organ transplant procedures across the country.
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