Mukami, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi’s widow was released from a Nairobi hospital on the evening of Sunday, January 15, 2023 after President William Ruto cleared her KSh1.3 million hospital bill which her family had been unable to raise.
The Legendary window had been admitted at the hospital since January 5, 2023 with pneumonia symptoms and age-related challenges. She had been treated and discharged on Thursday, January 12 but was detained by the hospital over a pending medical bill, a situation which raised reactions from Kenyans after the story went viral.
However, the bill was cleared on Sunday evening when Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua visited Mukami at the ward in which she had been detained. Gachagua was accompanied by Members of Parliament from Mt Kenya including Gathoni Wamuchomba (Githunguri) and Thika Town’s Alice Ngánga.
Rigathi said that Ms Mukami’s family’s inability to clear the hospital bill was an indication of the poverty that freedom fighters in the country languish in.
“Despite having fought for our freedom and sacrificed their all, they live in poverty and squalor. It is very sad because after the struggle, the black colonialists who came to power betrayed the Mau Mau freedom fighters and took their land, gave it to the home guards and their collaborators leaving freedom fighters and their families in abject poverty,” Gachagua lamented.
He said the home guards and collaborators own huge tracts of land that are idle and where antelopes and other animals roam freely as the freedom fighters are buried in public cemeteries and their children struggling without food and employment.
“It is very sad. I want to thank President William Ruto for his swift action to restore the dignity of Mukami Kimathi who has been held here at the hospital for failure to clear her bills. The President and I were not aware of this matter because we have been away on a working tour in Nyanza region until last night when this matter was brought to our attention by the MP for Embakasi Central Benjamin Gathiru and on our return to Nairobi this morning we have come to intervene,” he added.
Mukami took the opportunity to request the Deputy President to show her, her late husband’s burial site so that she can get an opportunity to bury him before her time comes.
