- The boy and his brother were playing outside their home when the he passed in front of his brother who had the jembe, which accidentally landed on his head.
- The boy was rushed to a Thika hospital where he was stabilised and a CT Scan taken before he was referred to KNH.
Image: COURTESY
The family of a two-year-old boy who died while undergoing surgery to remove a fork jembe lodged in his skull at the Kenyatta National Hospital is pleading for financial help for his burial.
The boy’s grandmother Asha Njeri told the Star the family is poor and can hardly raise funds for the hospital bill as well as burial expenses.
Njeri had visited the family at their Ndula village home in Thika East before the tragedy occurred.
She said her daughter, Judy Muthoni, the mother to the deceased is a single mother and a casual worker in the village and therefore would face an uphill task in raising the funds required.
“The tragedy has taken a toll on us, especially my daughter. She is not even able to speak at the moment. It’s very painful. We are only asking well-wishers to help us foot the cost of laying our boy to rest,” the grandmother said.
Njeri said she and Muthoni were not at home when the tragedy occurred.
The deceased and his elder brother aged five were playing outside their home together with other children when the boy passed in front of his brother who had a fork jembe, which accidentally landed on his head.
“We were not at home but we were still within the village. We were called by the neighbours informing us of the tragedy,” she said.
Neighbours, led by Rachael Harrison who’s also a community health volunteer in the village, said that they heard the child’s loud cry and rushed to the scene only to find the boy bleeding profusely with the fork jembe lodged in his head.
“They boy was rushed to the village dispensary and the doctor (identified as Cyrus) gave the boy first aid and then rushed him to Thika Level 5 Hospital in his car,” she said.
Upon arrival at the hospital the boy was stabilised and a CT Scan taken before he was referred to KNH.
However, the neighbours pointed an accusing finger to the management of KNH for taking too long to attend to the boy, saying that it amounted to negligence that led to the innocent boy succumbing while undergoing surgery.
“People are in pain in this village and we believe that the boy’s life would have been saved if he was attended to as emergency,” Harrison said.
However, the hospital on Tuesday in a statement said the patient had lost a lot of blood, and as a result, the clotting process was not occurring as expected, thereby, delaying the surgical procedure as this would have been dangerous to the patient.
“The patient has since been stabilised and is currently undergoing a delicate operation in KNH theatres. We assure you that the child is under the best care by our teams,” the hospital said.
The hospital only reacted after Kenyans piled pressure on it on social media.
On Wednesday, the hospital chairman George Ooko in a statement absolved the hospital of any wrongdoing or negligence.
“The patient arrived at KNH at 6.30pm but the circumstances and timing of the injury remained unclear," he said.
"He was received at the Accident and Emergency Department and our team, including the consultant neurosurgeons immediately commenced treatment and investigations to determine the safest management approach.”
He said that clinical examinations and investigations on the patient, including CT Scans and a blood test confirmed a penetrating injury into the brain.
“The patient’s condition continued to deteriorate despite the interventions. However the blood deficit and clotting became acceptable by 8am of October 11, 2022 and a decision to proceed with the removal of the foreign object was made,” the statement reads.
The statement further said that, “in the theatre, the patient developed complications and resuscitation attempts were futile. Following the demise, the parents were invited for a family conference where the chronology of actions was discussed and explained to them the news of the death was communicated.”
The hospital management condoled with the family for the untimely death of the boy.
“The hospital management wishes to convey a message of condolences to the parents and family for their loss. This was a very serious and unfortunate injury to the two-year-old,” Ooko said in the statement.
Meanwhile, Thika East police are yet to start investigations to the incident that left the boy gravely injured.
Police boss Lazarus Wambua, who spoke on phone, said that the matter is yet to be reported to the authorities, hence they are treating it as a family matter.
Wambua said that the information they received indicates that the child was playing with his elder brother aged five at their home when the tragedy occurred.
“The kid passed in front of his elder brother who was holding the digging fork as they were playing. Accidentally, the fork jembe landed on the kid’s head and that’s how the tragedy occurred. We are not investigating the matter because it is yet to be reported. We understand that it was unintentional,” he said.
(edited by Amol Awuor)