Tevin Obiga, 25, a fourth-year computer engineering student at the University of Manitoba, died last week at St Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The exorbitant bill has led to protests from Canadian politicians, who urged the government to reinstate health insurance for international students.
Obiga was admitted to the hospital in mid-January and moved to intensive care less than a week later after being diagnosed with blastomycosis, a fungal infection that affects the lungs.
Last week, his family received a medical bill of $517,764 (Sh50 million) for his stay at the hospital.
According to the national news outlet CBC, Manitoba Liberal party leader Dougald Lamont asked the government to immediately reinstate a programme that helped international post-secondary students pay for their health insurance and healthcare. It was disbanded by the Progressive Conservatives in March 2018.
“It’s a pretty low price to pay to make sure that students from abroad who study in Manitoba, who bring hundreds of millions of dollars with them, actually can get healthcare coverage when they need it,” CBC quoted him saying.
Obiga’s family and members of Winnipeg’s African community were trying to raise $20,000 to fly Obiga’s body to Kenya for burial when his family received the $517,764 medical bill. Most of the charges were incurred during a 43-day stay in intensive care.
In February, Lilian Ndiego, Obiga’s mother, was granted a temporary visa to go see her son. Her application had earlier been denied.
She had applied for a single-entry temporary resident visa to travel to Winnipeg.
Two weeks later, she was relieved when she was granted her visa after Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said her visa had been approved after “additional information” was provided in the second application.
In an interview with Radio Canada News, she said she’d previously applied for a visa but was denied by the Canadian High Commission in Kenya on February 15.
“I’m excited and I’m very grateful,” Ms Ndiego said.
“I’m looking forward to going and seeing my son, and to giving him moral support.”
Her application had been denied despite the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa pleading with its counterpart in Kenya in a February 4 letter to allow her to travel to Canada.
“I was disappointed because … they were telling me that most Kenyans who go to Canada don’t come back,” said Ms Ndiego, who admitted to having many sleepless nights the past five weeks.
In its letter, the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa wrote that Tevin was “at high risk of imminent death” but there was still a slim chance that he would survive.
Obiga fell ill and was admitted to the hospital on January 13.
Doctors performed a medical procedure on him two days later but he never woke up.
On January 19, he was moved to the intensive care ward, where he remained hooked up to several machines, including a lung bypass one.
In a previous interview, his mother said her son had been diagnosed with blastomycosis, a fungal infection that affects the lungs.
Dr Owen Mooney, who treated him, also wrote three letters pleading for Ms Ndiego to be granted passage to Canada to be with her son as “his condition is deteriorating rapidly”.
Dr Mooney said Obiga was on the maximum amount of life support a patient could receive.
Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid also wrote a letter of his own to the Canadian High Commission in Kenya on February 4 supporting her visa application.
In the letter, Mr Duguid touted Ms Ndiego’s previous 20-year career in social work, saying she has “a strong inclination to (return) to her duties and children, following her stay in Canada”. BY DAILY NATION