‘It was profit first’: Patients detained and indebted at World Bank-funded hospitals in Africa

Your news update from ICIJ.

Stories that rock the world. View this email in your browser DONATE Welcome to ICIJ's newsletter! Jacob Njagi's newborn son Jason could barely breathe when he arrived in an ambulance at a hospital in the leafy Parklands neighborhood of Nairobi. The private hospital, one of several medical facilities operated by the Avenue Group in Kenya, felt a million miles from the poverty around their home on the outskirts of the city. But the emergency ward's promise of much-needed medical care would come at a price. Before admitting Jason, the hospital administrators demanded a deposit of 100,000 Kenyan shillings (about $850) — more than a month of Njagi's income. "We had to beg them to at least give us oxygen, because the oxygen in the ambulance was almost out," he told ICIJ. Njagi managed to scrape the money together with the help of family and friends. But by the time Jason was discharged, after spending days on a ventilator in the neonatal intensive care unit, the bill had ballooned to more than 400,000 shillings (about $3,600). (Avenue's parent company said it does not make emergency care contingent on upfront payments.) Image: Micah Reddy / ICIJ Health care in Kenya is scarce and often ruinously expensive. The hospital where Jason was treated was meant to be different, though. The Avenue Group is backed by the International Finance Corp., an arm of the World Bank Group whose goal is to fight poverty in developing countries with private sector investment. Since 2009, the IFC has partnered with at least four private equity firms to invest in for-profit hospitals in Kenya and Uganda to fulfill its promise to make health care more affordable and accessible. Instead, the push for profits achieved the opposite: saddling families like Njagi's with crushing debt and draining wealth from whole communities. In some cases, hospitals detained patients who couldn't pay their bills, ICIJ found.  "It was profit before health care," said one former executive at an IFC-backed hospital in East Africa. "It was profit first." Read more here. THE HIGH COST OF CARE More than a decade after the IFC set out to transform global health care, there's scant evidence that its investments in Kenya worked. Former Avenue patients told ICIJ about the pain of choosing between financial stability and lifesaving care. "How am I supposed to pay the hospital a million that I've never made in my life?" said one father whose newborn fell ill. SANCTIONS VIOLATION The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has levied a nearly $216 million penalty against a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that managed an investment on behalf of a sanctioned Russian billionaire with alleged financial ties to President Vladimir Putin. Thanks for reading! Joanna Robin ICIJ's digital editor P.S. If you've enjoyed our coverage, remember to tell your friends and family and share our work on social media. Send them an email now! | LATEST NEWS China uses dissidents-turned-spies to infiltrate overseas activist groups, as authorities flounder Poor coordination, information gaps hamstring EU efforts to combat China's repression of critics Inside China Targets: The data footprints of China's transnational repression At least 40 journalists have fled El Salvador, fearing imprisonment After outpacing a European naval mission, cargo ship remains stranded in Libya Cyprus unable to claw back $15M in unpaid taxes from oligarch's superyacht charter company Canadian lawmakers urge action against transnational repression in wake of China Targets probe WATCH: Inside China Targets — a live panel with ICIJ reporters ICIJ's Caspian Cabals investigation wins prestigious TRACE Prize ICIJ reporter wins Livingston Award recognizing exceptional reporting by young journalists READ MORE NEWS STAY CONNECTED WITH ICIJ: This email was sent to www.tnr.tv.raymundolopeztiana@blogger.com, because you signed up to get ICIJ's stories in your inbox. Want fewer emails? Change your preferences or unsubscribe. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists | 1730 Rhode Island Ave NW, Suite 317 Washington, D.C. 20036 USA