A family at Lumino village in Likuyani Sub County has appealed for a thorough investigation to be done following the death of a pregnant woman who died at Lumino Dispensary where she had been taken for delivery.
The family has blamed laxity by the nurses at the facility for causing the death of their beloved one together with her unborn baby.
According to Mrs. Esther Onzere, her daughter-in-law Violet Ondisa Kabwoi had labor pains on March 15th morning and opted to be taken to the facility where she has been going for monthly antenatal care.
Though she was admitted at the facility at about 9am, the family alleges medical staff at the facility paid the least attention when it came to taking care of the 36 year old woman and after struggling close to nine hours, she and her baby died at about 6pm.
Mrs. Onzere said nurses kept on telling her all was well and her daughter-in-law would deliver safely despite her situation worsening.
She said her request to have the mother of six referred to a high level hospital where she could undergo Cesarean section was ignored by nurses and she was rudely send out of the maternity ward and barred from seeing her.
At about 4pm after realizing the situation had become worse, the nurses called for an ambulance which arrived 30 minutes later but they didn’t rush her to a better hospital as the nurse who came with the ambulance tried to help her but was unsuccessful, and she died two hours later at about 6pm.
“The last time she spoke, my daughter-in-law called out to the nurses and thanked them for what they had done to her and asked God to reward them greatly then she took her last breath, even before she could be taken to the ambulance,” explained Mrs. Onzere.
The body was removed to Chebaiywa mortuary in the neighboring Uasin Gishu County for postmortem where the doctor’s report indicates that the baby was so big to be pushed through the cervix and it would have been better if a C-section would’ve been done.
The incident sparked anger among the residents who staged a demonstration at the medical facility.
The family has appealed for justice claiming the death was as a result of laxity and negligence by the officials in charge of the facility.
Speaking to West Media in his office at the Likuyani sub county hospital, Mr. Daniel Maino, the sub county reproductive health coordinator regretted the incident terming it as unfortunate but said his department had launched investigation into the matter to establish the cause before taking any action.
“I have visited the facility and collected some information pertaining the issue and there might be so many other things that led to her death right away from the family level to the facility and even the ambulance department so I’m still collecting information. I’m yet to
get report from the family before I come up with a conclusive report of what could have triggered the death,” said Maino.