There’s Money to Fly Politicians in Choppers But No Money for Hospitals: Angry Gatundu Man Mourns Grandson Denied Ambulance

A grandfather’s anguish exposes the cruel reality of Kenya’s healthcare crisis

The wails of James Muiruri pierce through the morning air like a wounded animal’s cry, carrying with them the weight of a grandfather’s unbearable loss and a nation’s broken promises.

In his trembling hands, he clutches all that remains of his 10-month-old grandson—memories of a life snuffed out not by fate, but by a healthcare system that turned its back when it mattered most.

“There is money for our politicians to fly choppers but there is no medicine in hospitals and the doctors are on strike,” Muiruri’s voice cracks as he speaks, his words a damning indictment of a government that prioritizes political convenience over human life. “God, when will you end the world? We are tired of suffering.”

A Sunday that changed everything

It began as an ordinary Sunday afternoon in Gatundu North. Baby James Muiruri—named after his grandfather with hopes of carrying forward the family legacy—fell ill.

What should have been a routine trip to the hospital became a nightmare that would expose the grotesque inequalities plaguing Kenya’s healthcare system.

On Monday morning, as politicians elsewhere prepared for their day of comfort and privilege, Regina Wanjiku, 32, rushed her ailing son to Igegania Level Four Hospital.

The baby’s chest was clogged, his breathing labored. Time was running out.

But at the hospital, they encountered the first of many walls that would ultimately seal the baby’s fate: the doctors were on strike.

The cruel mathematics of Kenyan healthcare

The few volunteer medics present did what they could, placing young Muiruri on a nebulizer. But his condition was deteriorating rapidly. They needed to transfer him to St. Mulumba Hospital in Thika—if the family could show “commitment” by producing Sh20,000 for admission.

Twenty thousand shillings. The price of a politician’s single helicopter trip became an insurmountable mountain for a family watching their baby struggle for breath.

“We could not afford that amount,” the elder Muiruri recalls, his voice heavy with the bitter irony that in a country where millions are spent on political theatrics, a baby’s life hung in the balance over twenty thousand shillings.

Bureaucracy over humanity

Desperate, the family proposed an alternative: Maragua Hospital in Murang’a County, where doctors were not on strike. Surely, in the face of a dying child, bureaucratic boundaries would bend?

They were wrong.

“The health officials at Igegania Hospital refused, saying an ambulance from Kiambu cannot take a patient to another county,” Muiruri recounts, each word heavy with disbelief. “They even refused to allow us to take him to Maragua using private means.”

Two hours later, as administrators debated jurisdictions and protocols, baby James Muiruri drew his last breath.

The true cost of political priorities

While the Muiruri family watched helplessly as their youngest member slipped away, somewhere in Kenya’s corridors of power, officials were likely planning their next aerial commute.

The cruel mathematics are stark: a single helicopter trip for a politician costs more than what this family needed to save their baby’s life.

The baby’s death certificate will read natural causes, but the truth is more sinister. This was a death by bureaucracy, a killing by misplaced priorities, a tragedy authored by a system that values political convenience over human dignity.

The doctors’ strike in Kiambu County—now in its second week—is itself a symptom of the same disease. Medical professionals, the very people society depends on to save lives, cannot afford their own medical care.

They go months without salaries, work without medical insurance, and face intimidation when they dare speak up.

Dr. James Githinji, Chairman of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Union’s Central Branch, painted a picture as bleak as the Muiruri family’s loss: “We have numerous cases of doctors getting sick and going to hospitals, only to be turned back and forced to pay in cash because Kiambu County has not remitted or paid for their medical insurance.”

The irony is suffocating: doctors who dedicate their lives to healing cannot access the very healthcare system they serve.

The grandfather’s rage

Today, as villagers lead the elder Muiruri to Mangu Dispensary—a Catholic facility filling the void left by government negligence—his family reports he hasn’t slept or eaten since his grandson’s death.

He suffers from hallucinations, his mind perhaps mercifully trying to escape a reality too cruel to bear.

His rage is not just personal grief—it is the collective fury of millions of Kenyans who have watched their leaders live in luxury while citizens die from preventable causes.

It is the anger of parents who know that in this country, your child’s life is worth less than a politician’s flight schedule.

A system that chooses death

The baby’s death exposes a fundamental truth about Kenya’s priorities: we have built a system that can move politicians across the sky in minutes but cannot move a dying baby across county lines.

We have created a nation where those in power soar above the clouds while families below lose their most precious gifts to bureaucratic callousness.

The Health Executive Elias Mbau has promised investigations, but investigations cannot resurrect baby James Muiruri. They cannot heal his grandfather’s shattered heart or restore his mother’s faith in a system that failed her when she needed it most.

The questions that demand answers

How many more babies must die while politicians fly in comfort?

How many more families must be destroyed by a healthcare system that treats human life as a luxury good?

How many more grandparents must wail over preventable losses while their leaders enjoy privileges bought with public funds?

The Muiruri family demands compensation, but no amount of money can restore their loss.

What they truly seek—what all Kenyans deserve—is a system that values human life over political convenience, that prioritizes emergency care over administrative convenience, that chooses compassion over bureaucracy.

A bation’s shame

In the end, baby James Muiruri’s death is not just a family tragedy—it is a national shame that should haunt every Kenyan, especially those in positions of power.

It is a mirror reflecting our moral bankruptcy, a stark reminder that until we value every life equally, we remain a nation divided between those who soar and those who suffer.

The grandfather’s question echoes across the nation: “God, when will you end the world? We are tired of suffering.”

But perhaps the question should be: When will we end this suffering ourselves by demanding better from those we elect to serve us?

Until then, James Muiruri’s wails will continue to pierce the morning air, a grandfather’s lament becoming a nation’s call to conscience—if we still have one left to hear it.

The baby was laid to rest as his grandfather’s words continue to reverberate: “There is money for our politicians to fly choppers but there is no medicine in hospitals.” In a nation of such contrasts, these words stand as both epitaph and indictment.