KNH on the spot after second alleged surgery blunder

The Kenyatta National Hospital has hit the headlines yet again after a woman accused the facility of mishandling her Caesarean section.

Speaking from her hospital bed on Wednesday, Ms. Susan Nekesa told Citizen TV that she gave birth to her twin babies two months ago but could not go home after she developed complications.

“Mumeniweka hapa nikivumilia kwa muda kuwa mutanitengeneza niende nione watoto wangu… (You (the hospital) have kept me here for so long and I have been patient hoping to be discharged so I can go be with my children),” she said.

Ms. Nekesa is reported to have arrived at KNH on January 25, 2018 in labor but doctors realised she would not be able to give birth to the twins naturally.

This is what informed their decision to perform the Caesarean section to deliver her twin girls the next day. However, when she woke up, she realised all was not well.

“When I came to see her, her stomach was swollen and it felt hot, she was in pain and could not speak,” her sister Everlyne Anindo told Citizen TV.

She said doctors took her sister back to theater a week later and it was then that they allegedly admitted that the first surgery had caused complications.

According to Mr Robert Sitati, the patient’s husband, the surgical team discovered that a portion of her small intestine was outside its chamber. They then cut off the affected portion and left a small opening to allow Susan pass stool through a colostomy bag.

“They are telling me that we cannot leave since the doctors are still on strike,” he said. On Tuesday, the young parents received yet another blow after one of the twins died in the hospital nursery. Acting CEO Thomas Mutie says they are investigating the matter.

Earlier this month, there was public outcry after it emerged that the hospital performed brain surgery on the wrong patient after a mix-up of name tags.

Hours into the surgery, the doctors apparently failed to find the blood clot and it was then that they realised they had cut open the skull of the wrong man. The incident led to the suspension of KNH chief executive Lily Koros as a probe into the matter continues.