Luco Njagi & 21 others v Ministry of Health & 2 others [2015] eKLR e. The cost of this Petition. 8. By an application dated 29th November 2013, the petitioner sought consolidation of his petition with Petition No. 218 of 2013, which orders were issued on 25th February 2014. Consequently, the petitioners in Petition No. 218 of 2013 would be the 1st - 21st petitioners while the petitioner in 451 of 2013 would be the 22nd petitioner in the consolidated petitions. 9. The petitioners shall, in this judgment, be referred to together as the petitioners. They are all adult citizens of Kenya who require renal dialysis treatment as a result of kidney failure. 10. The respondents are the Ministry of Health, the Kenyatta National Hospital and the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents respectively. The 1st respondent is described as the arm of government responsible for policy making on health care and management of national referral health institutions in Kenya, while the 2nd respondent is a public hospital and is responsible for the provision of health care services to Kenyans. The 3rd respondent is a statutory corporation that provides medical insurance schemes to Kenyans who are its members. Background 11. The facts giving rise to this petition are largely not in dispute. The petitioners are all adult Kenyans who describe themselves as suffering from renal failure, a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter waste products from the blood. They state that they have been undergoing medical treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital for the past five years. Dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood and is used primarily as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with renal failure. 12. Kenyatta National Hospital is the main public referral hospital in the country. It had some 20 haemodialysis machines, but most of them are out of order, and only about 6 were functioning at the time this petition was filed. This situation has caused a strain on the existing machines and has resulted in long queues and waiting for patients who need dialysis. 13. Further, the hospital has prioritized access to the dialysis machines on the basis of the urgency and seriousness of each patient. It is this prioritization that the petitioners are aggrieved by, terming it discrimination and violation of their constitutional rights. 14. Like the other petitioners, the 22nd petitioner suffers from renal failure and requires dialysis at least three times a week. His claim is directed primarily at the 3rd respondent, NHIF. He avers that sometime in 2009, he was diagnosed with kidney failure due to terminal diabetes and hypertension. The cost of the dialysis that he requires thrice weekly is Kshs 108,000/= per month at the Nairobi Hospital. He agrees with the other petitioners that the treatment is also available at the Kenyatta National Hospital at a subsidized cost of Ksh 5,000/= per session but the waiting queue for patients is so long that he would only receive the treatment once every two months which would be detrimental to his health. He states that he also pays related doctors’ fees and drugs for his condition amounting to Ksh 50,000/= per month. 15. The 3rd respondent, NHIF, is a state corporation under the Ministry of Health established and governed by the NHIF Act, No. 9 of 1998. Its core mandate is expressed to be to provide medical insurance cover to all its members, their spouses, children and their declared dependants. Its membership is open to all Kenyans who have attained the age of 18 years and have a monthly http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 4/18