The Kenya government has been accused o not doing enough to provide care for patients with terminal illnesses.

Speaking in Nairobi while launching a report dubbed "Needless pain: Government Failure To Provide Palliative Care For Children in Kenya", a Human Rights Watchdog said that only seven out of the more than 250 hospitals in the country had Morphine-[painkillers]

The 78-page report found that most Kenyan children with diseases like Cancer or HIV/AIDS are unable to get palliative care or pain medicines. Kenya's few palliative care services provide counseling and support to families of chronically ill patients, as well as pain treatment, but lack programs for children. In addition the majority of sick children are cared for at home but there is little support for low-cost home-based palliative care.

Health care workers lack training  in pain treatment palliative care, and even when strong pain medicines are available, they are often reluctant to give these medicines to children.

"Kenyan children with Cancer or AIDS are living and dying in horrible agony", said Julliane Kippenberg, a senior children's rights researcher at the Human Rights Watch.

“The Kenyan government has taken a step in the right direction by establishing a few hospital palliative care units in recent years but more needs to be done to stop children from suffering needlessly,” said the report.

The World Health Organization considers oral morphine an essential medicine for treating chronic pain, as does Kenya's own drug policy. A daily dose can cost as little as a few cents, yet the Kenyan government does not purchase oral morphine for public health facilities as it does with other essential medicines. Although more than 250,000 people in Kenya are on antiretroviral treatment, all the morphine in the country could treat pain in only 1,500 terminal cancer or AIDS patients.

The human rights watchdog called on the Kenyan government to make oral morphine available in all public hospitals, to ensure that healthcare workers  are trained in palliative  care and to integrate children's palliative care into its health services, including home-based care.

Compiled by Kipronoh  Kitur.