•At 8am, a doctor who was acting as a link between the family and the operating medics in the theatre called him with the good news.
•His wife had delivered healthy baby boys, weighing 3.8kgs and 3.9kg. He however didn’t tell him about the condition of his wife
Image: JULIUS OTIENO
The time was 7 pm on September 5. Maureen Anyango went into labour.
She was expecting twins. Since she had been attending her antenatal clinics at Kayole 11 sub-district hospital, popularly known as Kwa D.O, her husband Robert Omondi rushed her to the same facility.
Tests showed she had high blood pressure. They waited to see if it would stabilize. It didn’t.
The medics decided to refer her to Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital in Umoja. They were given an ambulance and a driver.
When they got to the gate at Mama Lucy only his wife was allowed into the premises. It was 10.45 pm.
“We knew she was expecting twins so we had carried two bags. We watched her carry the heavy bags all by herself,” Omondi told the Senate on Tuesday.
After waiting for 20 minutes, they were told to leave and come back in the morning.
Omondi later came back to the facility at 6:45 the following day to check on his wife. He found her being moved to the theatre for her caesarian section delivery surgery.
The doctors told him it would take some time, so he opted to go back home and finish up on a few tasks he was yet to accomplish. The house is not far from the hospital after all.
At 8 am, a doctor who was acting as a link between the family and the operating medics in the theatre called him with the good news.
His wife had delivered healthy baby boys, weighing 3.8kgs and 3.9kg. He however didn’t tell him about the condition of his wife.
Fast he rushed to the hospital and found his wife in ward 5, with a drip in her hand, on a tiny bed, shared by their newborn twins.
They had no clothes on. But his wife could still speak, though lying helpless on her back.
She requested him to help her breastfeed their second twin who was crying.
“When I was trying to help I realised she was bleeding so looking the drip had no medicine. Luckily the nurse on duty was passing. I called her to come and check because there was a backflow of blood in the pipe but didn’t give me the attention,” he told the Senate committee.
“She passed the second round, the third round I called her to check the backflow of blood, she told me to remove the drip syringe which he did and rested her hand,” he added.
The noise from the other women in the ward made doctors come. It was 1.20 pm. The doctors advised them to leave the room. They carried the babies with them and waited outside.
Even though he couldn’t tell what was going on, he could hear screams from his wife. He was so traumatized.
Ten minutes later, the doctors moved Maureen out of the ward, together with the bed that was soaked in blood.
“I was at the entrance so my wife the last word was I buy the babies NAN. She had been taken to the theatre for the second time,” he narrated.
He would later receive a call at 4 pm telling him that his wife was in bad condition and was undergoing a transfusion. But he was assured that by 8 pm she would have stabilized. There was silence after that.
Another call came in some minutes to 8 pm. He was informed that his wife’s condition had become worse and they were organizing a referral for her.
There were two options; KU referral hospital and Machakos Level 5, but a sum of Sh200,000 was needed to admit her. He didn’t have a single coin in his pocket.
There was a third option. A chance had been found at Kiambu Hospital and they had agreed to admit Maureen free. He was however supposed to clear the costs that would be incurred later. He was desperate, so he agreed to the suggestion.
But there was no ambulance at the moment. The driver had taken an emergency case to Kenyatta National Hospital so he had to wait. The driver finally came. It was midnight.
“I saw them remove her, with the pipes. They were struggling to fix the pipes, they were wondering which pipe should enter where. I had to carry the oxygen cylinder because they had no one to help them,” he said.
Their ride to their destination was not smooth either.
The driver, he said, had opted to go through what he thought to be a shortcut. A shortcut, according to him, he didn’t understand well, with too many uncomfortable potholes.
At some point, he had to stop the ambulance to ask for directions, he narrated.
This made him mad because to him every minute meant a lot.
“We got to Kiambu at 1 am. We were received well; in the ICU there was an argument about the size of the pipes that had entered the mouth. They exchanged files and started fixing their pipes. There was some movement on the screen.”
The nurses at Kiambu hospital advised him to wait and come to the ICU at 6.45 am to see his wife’s progress. They had to stabilise her.
When he went to the ICU, the nurse could not allow him to enter but advised him to wait and wait till he would be called. He waited. After some time he went and knocked on the ICU door a second time.
He was told to move to the back, where he received the most devastating news.
“They told me they had tried their best but we had lost her. At 7 am,” he said amid uncontrollable tears.
The Senate committee led by Uasin Gishu senator Jackson Mandago had invited Omondi to give an account of what transpired as the inquest into the cases of alleged negligence at Mama Lucy hospital continued.
The Senators will be touring the hospital on a fact-finding mission.
They have also resolved to summon the management of both the county government and the hospital to respond to the questions paused.
The committee have identified this as a serious case of negligence noting that the death could have been avoided had the people that were taking charge acted with speed and professionalism.
“Mama Lucy cannot fail and the senate committee on health claim to succeed on anything. Crack the whip, do what must be done. There are a lot of Nairobians who go there for medical care but if it means you have to shut that hospital for a period of time and give the management the issues that you want to be addressed before it can be reopened it is within the powers of the committee,” Senator Enoch Wambua said.
Nairobi senator Edwin Sifuna who also attended the committee admitted that something has to be done to salvage the situation before many more lives are lost.
“Just hearing and recounting the story that Robert has told us there are so many things that do not make sense. I would not even hire a personal driver who does not know his whereabouts in Nairobi. How do you give an ambulance to someone who does not know where they are going?” Nairobi senator Edwin Sifuna paused.