Family accuses Nairobi West hospital of neglecting patient

At the home of the late Justus Ondimo on Jogoo Road in Nairobi County, family and friends have been gathering for a fundraising event to foot hospital and burial expenses,

It is the circumstances under which the Meru OCS succumbed that has been a subject of debate among Kenyans online.

In a video recorded by his son, Caleb Ondimo inside a van outside the hospital’s emergency area he is heard pleading with the hospital staff to attend to his sick father who earlier in the day had visited the facility for his radiotherapy session.

“So one of the doctors came and said we are waiting for a stretcher for us to take dad in, then I was like is there only one stretcher in this hospital for you to keep someone in the hospital entrance for one hour to just check him out,” Caleb lamented.

He says they only responded after he started recording the video but to the family, the rescue came a little too late as they were informed that their father had already passed on.

“Actually that is the worst part the doctor looks at me and tells me your dad is dead, do we put him in our mortuary, I just stood from there and that is when my mother and brother saw me and knew dad is gone,” Caleb said.

He added:

“I’m not yet mourning my dad, I’m mourning why do people have to inhumane like that, my mum was screaming,”

The family believes that had the hospital promptly attended to their kin the situation could have been different.

The matter was reported to the hospital’s legal department who promised to follow up on it.

The Nairobi West Hospital chief medical officer Dr. Andrew Gachie dismissed the negligence claims and stated that the patient had been received into the accident and emergency area and examined by a doctor who confirmed he was dead on arrival and communicated the same to the next of kin.