A pregnant woman at Kakamega Provincial General Hospital was left to die, after a gynaecologist meant to treat her said she was too tired and her shift had come to the end.
The deceased, Elizabeth Akala, was admitted to the hospital after an ultrasound examination revealed that the 34-weeks-old baby she was carrying, had died in the womb.
Though taken in by Kakamega General hospital at 5pm on Tuesday October 27, her husband Zacharia Ludenyo disclosed that his dying wife was attended to at 8.30am the following morning, as the nurses had signed off duty leaving Elizabeth at the hospital in dire pain.
“She was in so much pain and she kept asking me to call the nurses for her. She kept screaming in pain like someone in labour. Her pain seemed to get worse with time but none of the doctors attended to her,” the Nation quoted Ludenyo.
Ludenyo narrated how arrogantly the female gynaecologist treated his wife, when she handed the ultrasound report which indicated that Elizabeth needed urgent medical attention.
“The gynaecologist looked at the ultrasound results and asked my wife whether she was literate. She threw the papers at her saying that the results showed that the thing you are carrying in your belly is already dead. The gynaecologist then admitted her and told us that she was too tired, and that she had completed her shift and that she had even overstayed by more than an hour.”
The 36-year-old mother of one was agonizing in pain beside her helpless husband, who was forced to leave at around 9pm to attend to their seven-year-old child left in the house alone.
“By the time I was leaving, my wife looked better. She was in pain, but I could see that she could at least rest on her bed. At that time the nurse told us that the patient was going to be taken to the theatre in a few minutes. I left that nurse there with her and she assured me that my wife would be okay,” he said.
Ludenyo came back to the hospital the following morning to the sad news that his wife had died. Elizabeth had not been operated on as earlier promised by the nurse when he left the hospital.
“Around 9am, I found my sister-in-law and her husband at the hospital and we were all told by a different doctor that my wife was no more. I went straight into the hospital bed where the body was and I realised no operation had been done.” Ludenyo unveiled.
“I signed the papers and the body was taken to the morgue, where the baby was now removed,” Ludenyo said.
The family indicated that they had a recording of the gynaecologist refusing to attend to Elizabeth citing that her shift had ended.
The unfortunate incident comes a few weeks after a patient, Alex Madaga, died at Kenyatta National Hospital when he was left unattended in an ambulance for 18 hours.
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