Mother’s agony after operation goes awry

She was born a bouncing baby girl, the only child to the family of Mrs Dorcas Waithera.

The beacon of hope to the family is fading, regressing into pain and agony for her mother as a doctors’ hand aimed to correct a simple tonsil ailment turned the life of five-year-old Gladwell Wangeci to misery. Today, her leg is threatened with amputation.

It is a case of another doctor’s fault and negligence, but worse the hospital has deserted the family and no one wants to take responsibility.

Speaking to The Standard, Waithera said they took their daughter to Nazareth Hospital after she developed tonsils. On screening the tonsils, Waithera said doctors recommended they admit the girl so that a tonsillectomy –surgery to remove tonsils — can be performed.

In bandages

“We admitted her on November 25 and the following day the surgery was done. When she came out of the theatre, her left leg was wrapped in bandages,” she says.

Waithera claims the four-hour stay in the theatre was unusual.

Waithera says their efforts to seek an explanation have earned them ridicule from hospital attendants.

” Last week, when I went there, the matron told me that I should count myself lucky for having my daughter alive. They even chased us from the hospital compound,” says Waithera.

Hospital authorities who talked to The Standard on the telephone denied the claims , but no one was willing to give details of how a tonsil surgery caused the injury to the leg.

The head of paediatrics in the hospital, Mrs Doreen Mutiga, kept referring us to the ward matron.

“I can’t talk or even comment on anything, you better talk to the matron, she is better placed to explain it to you,” she said.

However, our efforts to reach the matron were futile as the telephone operator said she was not in office.

“The matron is at a hospital function and I doubt if she will be coming out anytime soon, I am sorry I can’t give you her mobile telephone number,” the operator said and hung up.

Source: East African Standard