A family from Mnarani village is crying foul after their daughter died at the Kilifi county hospital on Sunday morning.
The family blames the hospital for negligence after it failed to facilitate blood transfusion.
Rehema Katana, 13 died at the hospital on Sunday morning where she was rushed after she developed complications.
According to Betty Katana, mother to the deceased, Rehema was misdiagnosed with TB last year in February and put on drugs.
It was later discovered that she was suffering from lymphoma.
“She started started taking TB drugs but a week later she started vomiting blood clots. I took her to the hospital again but the doctors turned me away saying it was just the effect of the drugs,” narrated Betty.
She was later taken to Mombasa for further check-up where she was diagnosed with lymphoma.
On September 27, the then health CS Cleopa Maila facilitated her transfer to Kenyatta hospital.
“We stayed at KNH for two months and the swelling and vomiting disappeared. We came back home but the situation recurred. I went back to Kilifi hospital but I could not get any help instead they referred me to Coast general hospital for a CT scan. The scan was not done because every time I visited CGH they would tell me the machine was not working. I came back home and depended on painkillers for my daughter which had no help,” he said
Last week Rehema started becoming pale and restless.
“Two days ago the situation worsened and when I took her to the hospital her blood was five points and the doctor told me that they cannot transfuse blood on her and advised me to put her on diet,' she said.
She said on Saturday things became worse and when she took her to the emergency wing at the Kilifi county hospital, the doctor who had been turning her away shouted at her telling her that there's no blood.
Betty returned home and left her daughter with her sister at the ward.
“I wanted to get friends to donate blood even if it means sampling it at a private hospital but the doctor later informed me that my daughter is no more,” she said.
Kilifi county acting chief officer for health Kenneth Kazungu also declined to comment on the matter but confirmed that the hospital has run out of essential reagents.
“We received our last supply of reagents slightly over a month ago, even before we could process payments to the supplier, my office was informed a week ago that the lab reagents were already running out of stock, I immediately tasked the county lab manager to prepare another order so as to avert a complete stock out," he said.
He added; "I also asked him to give me a comprehensive report on how the last supply had been utilized. In the meantime I also put in a mechanism whereby the hospital could purchase the essential reagents directly should there be a stock out before the next supply as procurement is also quite a long process. This was an arrangement intended to avoid a complete stagnation of lab services. We signed the new orders last and we expect supplies next week”