The five-month harrowing wait of a Kenyan citizen, who had been allegedly detained at the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) for non-payment of bills, ended this morning as he walked ‘free’ out of the hospital.

Antony Odhiambo, who hails from Homa Bay in Kenya, is a student of International Relations and Understanding at the Institute of United Nations Studies, New Delhi. He had come to the city to visit a friend in March last year when he suffered severe abdominal pain and was admitted first to the local Civil Hospital and later to CMCH where he spent over seven months.

“I am a happy man today as I can walk free now,” beamed an apparently relieved Antony. “My parents must have had sleepless nights all this while, so the first thing I am going to do is call them up,” he added. Antony had studied BCom from Indore in Madhya Pradesh and has been in India since 2003.

The Kenyan citizen was released this morning after the intervention of NGO Universal Human Rights Organisation which claimed to secure his release by entering into talks with the hospital authorities.

However, Dr Kanwal Masih, medical superintendent of CMCH, said, “We had discharged the patient on November 3 and ever since he had been hopeful and wished that some token money would be paid to the hospital by the Kenyan Embassy. He was in the hospital at his own will. We will still be following the case with the Embassy and have already written to them over five times.”

Meanwhile, Satnam Singh, president of UHRO, said they appreciated the hospital for treating the patient even when he did not pay any money beforehand. “But they had detained him even after the treatment was over in November. They had declared him discharged from the hospital but still kept him there,” he blamed.

Interestingly, the NGO did not file any police complaint but pursued the matter with the hospital authorities. He was finally released without paying any amount of the bills.

Antony was due to pay an amount of Rs 6.89 lakh to CMCH which he had incurred during his seven month stay in the hospital as he was undergoing treatment for intestinal obstruction and hernia.

“My father has long retired from his service as an optician and I have two brothers and sisters. Even though some of my friends stood by me, they also had a limited amount sufficient only to just support their education in India while the hospital bill had unexpectedly reached a whopping Rs 6.89 lakh. I had conveyed my inability to pay the bills to the hospital authorities’ right from the beginning,” he narrated.

The 37-year-old was admitted to the CMCH on August 9 last year. Prior to this, Antony was undergoing treatment for his stomach problem at Civil Hospital where he had been admitted on March 23. He was operated upon three times at the Civil Hospital. After spending 46 days at Civil Hospital, Antony was asked by the doctors to come back for Ilostomy after two months.

“I came back to the Civil Hospital on July 28 and my condition deteriorated post the surgery and the doctors recommended that I should either go to PGI or CMCH. Since the latter was the nearest I was taken there,” Antony recalled.

Asked if he was not allowed to leave the hospital, Antony said he had told the hospital authorities that he could not pay the bills. “It wasn’t that I did not want to but I could not. I did tell this to the hospital administration. But they still kept me there since they wanted their money,” he alleged. He added that he had been declared fit for discharge by the doctors on November 12.