British woman held in hospital pleads for help to clear bill

A British woman who is detained at the Nairobi Women’s Hospital after failing to raise more than Sh3 million to secure her discharge is pleading for help to offset the bill.

Tinu Amy Collins, 25, from Manchester, was being treated for a fractured left thigh, right ankle, dislocated pelvis and other injuries occasioned by what she insists was an accident and not a deliberate shove off the balcony by her boyfriend as claimed by media.

She says she fell off the balcony after a row with her fiancé.

DISCHARGED

She was officially cleared to leave the hospital's Adams branch in July but could not raise some close to Sh2 million that the hospital billed her.

Initial accounts and stories that have been published in the media locally and internationally reported that Ms Collins had been pushed off the balcony of their fifth floor home in Hurlingham, Nairobi by her then fiancé, Bradley Ombomi, a rapper popularly known as Trap King Chrome.

He was arrested by Kenyan police officers but released without charge because there was no complainant in the case.

When Daily Nation visited Ms Collins at the hospital on Friday, she insisted that she had slipped and fallen, occasioning the injuries.

"We had just had an exchange over some text messages on his phone where he was promising a girl that he was going to spend the night with her and beat me up and pushed me and smashed me onto the floor. It wasn’t the first time it was going to happen. He had developed a habit of sleeping out.

SLIPPED

“I was distressed and moved to the balcony to catch some air. I sat on the balcony and that is when I slipped and fell to the ground floor," said Ms Collins of the June 13 night incident.

She says she had been drinking but was not intoxicated.

"I had tried to pull myself up but couldn't," she said.

"I fell and landed on my feet, then fell on my right side. Apparently, Ombomi and some neighbours rushed down to see how I was and called an ambulance."

When she got to the hospital she was unconscious and was admitted to the ICU where she lay in a coma for three days.

She remained in the ICU for close to a month.

LOVER

But the woman, who came to Kenyan in pursuit of the lover whom she had met in Britain, reveals theirs had been a violent relationship throughout.

"The day after my arrival from the UK he struck me on the face and gave me a black eye. He constantly beaten me up while drunk," she says.

She said she met the London-based rapper who had been living in England with his family about 12 year ago and they dated for about a year before going their separate ways.

It was not until about a year ago when they reconnected when the musician requested her to be friends with her on Facebook.

After rekindling their love on social media, she came to visit him for two weeks in February, a period during which their love blossomed again and he proposed to her.

She returned to live with him on April 29, in the hope of settling down.

NO MEDICAL COVER

Now Ms Collins, who says she has no medical cover, is calling on Kenyans to come to her aid in clearing the bill which accumulates by about Sh7,000 every day.

"The hospital has said it will not come to any agreement with me until I have paid up a substantial amount of money — at least two thirds — and I'm unemployed as of now," said the woman who was a cleaner and bartender back in England.

She claims that initially her ex-fiancé — they have since broken up — had promised to fundraise and clear the bill.

"But now he doesn't even come to see me in hospital and he seems to have abandoned me," she says.

Collins also says the British High Commission in Nairobi has also not been of any help.

GUARANTOR

"The hospital was willing to come to an agreement with me if the British High Commission agreed to stand as guarantor that I would pay back the money once I was back at work back home. But the commission has said it is not their responsibility."

"I have opened an M-Pesa pay bill number and I'm begging Kenyans of goodwill to help get me clear the bill so I can go back home," she said.

"My family back in Britain is not able to raise the money. My mother, a single mum, depends on state welfare and has only been able to send Sh20,000," she added.

Friends and family have started a Gofund account on www.gofundme.com to 'bring Tinu back home' but it has not amounted to much, having only raised some £936 (Sh126,942).

The M-Pesa pay bill number (504302) has only raised some Sh7,877.