Luco Njagi & 21 others v Ministry of Health & 2 others [2015] eKLR number of 30. The shortage of the machines for chronic dialysis patients is further worsened by the requirement of the same machines for very sick patients admitted at the hospital with acute kidney failure. It is its case that such patients have to take priority in the provision of dialysis. 42. It is the 2nd respondent’s further submission that the incidence in Kenya of chronic renal failure requiring haemodialysis is 200 per million of the population per year; that with Kenya’s population standing at approximately 40 million, the hospital gets 8,000 new patients that require renal replacement therapy every year; that approximately 500 patients receive dialysis treatment due to the related high cost; and that it currently has approximately 300 patients on regular chronic haemodialysis at its Renal Unit, up from approximately 120 patients one year ago; and that it therefore gets on average 5 new patients starting on haemodialysis every week. 43. The 2nd respondent also details other initiatives that it has undertaken with respect to renal disease: that it offers a training programme for renal nursing and serves as the training base for provincial hospitals in Kenya. It contends that kidney transplantation is the best remedy and that there is a kidney transplant programme at the Renal Unit which has been highly successful over the past 3 years that has seen kidney transplants carried out in approximately 80 patients at a cost of about Kshs 300,000/= per person compared to Kshs 2 million per person for the same treatment at some private hospitals or outside the country. 44. It is also its case that it has taken other initiatives with a view to improving the situation at its Renal Unit by, among other things, requesting corporate organizations to donate funds and/or machines to the Renal Unit; training renal nurses and working with the Ministry of Health with a view to spreading dialysis services to the Counties and other public hospitals in Nairobi and across the country so as to help decongest the dialysis services at Kenyatta National Hospital; and working with willing organizations to raise funds for kidney transplants to needy Kenyans as this will in turn reduce the pressure on dialysis machines. 45. It submits that it has also committed itself to buying 3 to 5 new dialysis machines each year, as well as leasing others. It has produced an open tender notice inviting tenders for the leasing of 20 Renal Haemodialysis machines as evidence of the actions it is taking to improve the situation at the Renal Unit. 46. The 2nd respondent therefore submits that it is not true, as alleged by the petitioners, that they have been denied or are unable to access kidney dialysis treatment at Kenyatta hospital. It contends that all patients are attended to without discrimination and given priority depending on the seriousness of their conditions in line with the 2nd respondent’s current capacity and universal standards without any discrimination. 47. The 2nd respondent argues that to grant the prayers that the petitioners seek would have dire consequences as it would mean marshaling all of Kenyatta Hospital resources to cater for only those patients in need of renal dialysis to the exclusion of all other patients requiring different types of treatment, a situation which the 2nd respondent terms as not only discriminatory but extremely dangerous. 48. The respondent relies on the decisions in Soobramoney (supra), John Kabui Mwai and 3 Others –vs- Kenya National Examination Council and 2 Others, Petition No 15 of 2011, and Mathews Okwanda –vs- Minister for Health and Medical Services and Others (supra) to support its arguments and prays that the petition be dismissed. The Case for the 3rd Respondent http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 9/18