Your concerns are valid.
I was discharged from hospital today (after 3 days in)& I was not responding to some of the antibiotics so they had to change doses b4 I could get well....the bill shot up two-fold.

My approach from now is 'understand the Hospital and the Doctor first'
Collect me if I am wrong but I think prescriptions should only come from medical doctors and not nurses, laboratory technicians or clinical officers

I have also noticed that nowadays, everytime one visits a hospital, lazima nitoke na three (3) drugs irrespective of the ailment. Why three, why not one or four? I tend to think that the new kids on the medical block have and especially in middle class hospitals i.e Getrudes, Nairobi Hosi, AgaKhan etc seem to have very minimal exposure to various ailmets and have inardvaertently been turned into sales reps for major drug companies. Gone are the days when you would take you kid to Gertrudes and the doctor would be more concerned with talking to the kid than listening to the mother. Not that they did not listen to the mother, just that they knew who they were treating. Many a time, they would send the parents out and take time with the kid. By the time he called you in, he knew something about the kid you did not know or had not told him about. Interetsingly, hardly did they give you more than one drug but would then give you a lecture on how to feed and take care of your kid. The would even give you a feeding program

I remember one who was like that called Dr Muasya or something who had been the country's head paedetrician before retiring to his practice on Kenya Re towers in town. Unfortunately I heard he passed on but he had a daughter who followed his footsteps. I hope she does not let her father down!

@ burning spear, allow me to deviate a bit. My 18 month old daughter was put on antibiotics for a throat infection. However after giving her the second dose she vomitted around half an hour later. Should the dose be repeated or was the half hour enough for her to absorb the drug?

Yeah i will correct you:) contrary to popular opinion,Nurses can treat some ailments better than doctors,so do not go for titles that much. Ofcourse a lab tech has no business writing a prescription- that is not their field and a clinical officer is well qualified to treat people,even without the guidance of a doctor. I have seen some very very good clinical officers,better than Doctors.

What famooz says is quite true. Nurses, lab techs, clinical officers all have a role to play. They all need each other. Few can afford the services of doctors especially mwananchi Wa kawaida. And especially from their private clinics. Would make sense to see a nurse or clinical officer and if it is a complicated case then they should refer you to a Doc for specialized attention. Lab techs shouldn't prescribe but they play a very crucial role in guidance in treatment.
In the event of a bacterial infection that can be isolated in a culture, they are the ones who are in a better position to recommend what drugs are most effective but the best among those is determined by clinicians who have the patients history and overall condition. And the most expensive drugs can also be resistant while those cheap old school ones end up being highly sensitive hence best. They just reduce guesswork on the clinicians part.
As for Helicobacter pylori... More than half the worlds population have it. And majority are asymptomatic. The bacteria slowly erodes the stomach lining mucus. So a lab test might give a positive result in the absence of symptoms. Once the lining is eroded then the digestive juices (hcl in the stomach) begin digesting the stomach as nyama ni protein pia. Then the symptoms become noticeable. Ulcers. The bacteria can be detected in stool (antigen) or blood (antibody). My 2 cents.