Annette Kabarika, a 22-year-old lady was the subject of a video doing rounds online after she was engaged in a grisly bodaboda accident.
She aroused the plight and anger of Kenyans after the video recorded moments of indifference, as staff at the Vihiga County Referral Hospital ignored her pleas to be attended to, despite the horrifying extent of her injuries.
The Standard reported on Sunday, September 22, that Kabarika spent approximately 30 hours without receiving professional care at the county referral hospital before her painful death.
All this time, it is reported that she was pleading with the healthcare staff who had refused to treat her for failing to raise the Ksh4,500 needed before she could be helped.
Robai Adisa, the mother to Kabarika told the Standard that she managed to raise Ksh2000, but she was told to top it up before the doctors could help her daughter.
She alleged that all the while, Kabarika was crying painfully, but the night nurses only gave her drips, which she had been on all along.
"On the same day at night, she was taking a lot of water. I had bought her some chips but she only ate two 2 pieces with a glass of milk. She was still bleeding and being told to lie facing up," Robai Adisa was quoted.
She stated that at 3am on Monday morning, Kabarika asked her to move closer to the bedside.
"She told me that doctors had neglected her and that she had been pained for so long, and turned away from me, facing the wall. At 3.40 AM, she breathed her last. I was so infuriated and wanted to carry her lifeless body home at that moment but I could not," she grieved.
The Standard reported that even in her Gimarakwa home in Vihiga County, Adisa is still full of regrets that her daughter died because she could not afford Ksh4,500 at the time.
Vihiga County Director of Communication Victor Wetende, however, disputed their side of the story, noting that Kabarika was attended to but it was too late to save her life.
He also clarified that if indeed the healthcare workers are found culpable, disciplinary action would be taken against them.
