NAIROBI, Kenya, April 28 – On 7th April 2026, a story in the Daily Nation laid bare a quiet, persistent failure in our country. A man, Michael Wafula, was hit by a vehicle and left on the roadside, and within minutes a small crowd had gathered and begun searching online for ambulance numbers to call.
Over the next five hours, more than thirty calls were made in search of an ambulance, even as Wafula lay bleeding out with increasingly laboured breathing.
Some numbers did not go through. Others rang endlessly. Some were answered, only for callers to be told no ambulance was available. Private providers asked for deposits no one present could raise. National emergency lines went unanswered. Even the number listed on a government website did not pick up.
Eventually, a passing school bus agreed to transport him to hospital, assisted by members of the crowd, but he had already died before arrival.
This is not an isolated tragedy, but part of a wider systemic failure in emergency care that cuts across all levels of society, affecting both ordinary citizens and senior public figures, and underscoring the urgency for decisive and immediate reform.
In November 2017, former Nyeri Governor Dr Wahome Gakuru was involved in a road accident along the Thika Sagana highway. Reports indicated he waited approximately forty five minutes for help. He died at Thika Level 5 Hospital. An inquest pointed to delayed emergency response as a contributing factor. The nearest facility equipped to handle his injuries was kilometres away, and the system that should have bridged that distance failed.
Between these two stories lies a hard truth. In Kenya, survival in an emergency is often determined not by the severity of injury, but by the speed and certainty of response. And too often, that response is absent.
Globally, emergency medicine operates on what is known as the golden hour, the critical window within which timely intervention significantly improves survival outcomes. In well coordinated systems, response times are measured in minutes, while in Kenya delays are common and response times are often unpredictable.
Estimates suggest that over 80 per cent of Kenyans lack access to organised pre hospital emergency services. In many counties, there is no centralised dispatch system. Ambulance distribution is uneven, and response protocols are unclear. Emergency numbers exist, but reliability remains inconsistent.
We have, in effect, normalised improvisation.
A boda boda becomes a stretcher, a private car becomes an ambulance, and a crowd becomes first responders without training, equipment, or coordination.
This is not a failure of compassion. Kenyans show up – they always do. It is a failure of structure.
Emergency care is not only about ambulances, rather, it is a system. From dispatch and trained personnel to the proximity of equipped facilities and financing models that do not exclude those who cannot pay upfront, emergency care is policy that moves from paper to practice.
Kenya has made policy strides – the 2020 Kenya Emergency Medical Care Policy, and the ongoing push for universal health coverage signal intent. But intent must translate into operational systems that function in real time, under pressure, without exception.
We must ask difficult questions.
Why are national emergency numbers unreliable?
Why is there no universally accessible, integrated dispatch system?
Why does the ability to receive emergency care still depend on immediate liquidity? Why are critical care facilities so unevenly distributed across counties? And perhaps most importantly, why have we accepted this as normal?
For me, this is not theoretical.
Years ago, I lost my only sister during childbirth. What should have been a manageable emergency became a race against time we were never equipped to win. We searched, we called, and waited. And when help finally arrived, it arrived too late. My lovely sister died, together with her baby.
That experience never leaves you. It changes how you see systems, and more painfully, how you see their absence.
It is also why I believe this conversation must shift from reaction to design.
We need a coordinated national emergency response system that integrates public and private providers into a single dispatch network. We need enforced response time standards. We need investment in training paramedics and emergency medical technicians at scale. We need to rethink financing so that no Kenyan is denied immediate care because they cannot produce a deposit in a moment of crisis.
We also need to build an emergency care culture. One where citizens know who to call and trust that someone will answer. One where first responders are supported, not substituted. One where infrastructure matches urgency.
Michael Wafula should not have died on a roadside after thirty unanswered calls.
Dr Gakuru should not have waited for rescue that never came in time.
My sister should not have lost her life in a system that could have saved her.
These are not separate stories. They are signals.
And if we are paying attention, they are telling us the same thing.
We cannot continue like this.
