Grief engulfed Kakamega county hospital yesterday when a patient committed suicide after failing to get medical assistance due to the ongoing doctors and nurses’ strike.

Josphat Konga is reported to have been suffering from acute ulcers and had been discharged on Sunday evening and was set to go home on Monday but he developed complications and there was no one to attend to him.

He hung himself in the bathroom using his wife’s wrapper.

Doctors and nurses started a countrywide strike yesterday over a pay row with the government and patients seeking treatment at public hospitals are being turned away and asked to go to private medical centers. Those who cannot afford the cost at private hospitals have no option than to persevere and live with the hope that the strike ends soon.

Yesterday, patients at the Mathari mental hospital also escaped from the hospital following the doctor’s strike.