Cii Radio| Ayesha Ismail| 06 March 2018| 18 Jumadul Ukhra 1439
Health services were crippled at Kenyatta National Hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi after 700 doctors went on strike protesting the indefinite suspension of a colleague after he performed brain surgery on the wrong patient sparking outrage in the country.
The head of the Kenya Medical Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Dr Ouma Oluga condemned the suspension
“From today there will actually be no services at Kenyatta National Hospital, we are demanding the reinstatement of our colleague, unconditionally, we are saying that we want to be involved in any investigation that is going on so that the truth can come out,” Oluga said.
Oluga said that “mistakes happen” noting that the suspended doctor had been unwarrantedly victimized.
A statement from the doctors read: “The surgery was done on the wrong patient mainly because of wrong patient labelling by the ward staff. If you punish people for reporting or identifying errors, they will stop reporting them.”
Kenyans seeking medical attention at Kenyatta National hospital which is said to be the biggest hospital in East and Central Africa were forced to seek alternative solutions in private hospitals which are expensive.
‘Horror Mix up’
Three other staff – the ward nurse, theatre receiving nurse and anaesthetist – had also been suspended.
Reports last week said that the neurosurgeon was suspended after performing a brain surgery on the wrong patient.
According to Daily Nation, this was “one of the worst cases of medical malpractice to become public at Kenyatta National Hospital”.
The report said that two men had been wheeled into the hospital a week ago – one needed a surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain “while the other only required nursing and medication to heal a trauma swelling in his head”.
There was, however, “a horror mix-up of tags”, which resulted in the wrong man being wheeled into theatre and his skull opened.
Doctors only realised the mistake hours into the surgery “when they discovered there was no blood clot in the brain”.
Extracts – Anadolu Agency| News 24
Pic Credit – all africa.com
