A family in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County, has petitioned Parliament to launch investigations into the death of their kin who died in 2021 at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH).

The family, in a petition presented to the Senate plenary on Wednesday, July 10, alleges that the kin, Ms Anita Chepkorir, died because of medical negligence and staff incompetency at the hospital.

It all started in January 9, 2021 when Chepkorir ingested a Black seed which choked her.

She was rushed to Mediheal Hospital, before she was referred to MTRH to have a bronchoscopy done to remove the seed that was stuck in her airway.

But at MTRH, Chepkorir was taken to theatre where a bronchoscopy was reportedly done and showed no evidence of a foreign body in her airway.

Based on the report done by one Doctor Oloo, she was discharged on 10th January 2021.

“But even before she had been cleared [for discharge] she developed a respiratory distress necessitating her to be readmitted,” the petition by Mercy Chepchirchir reads in parts. “On 13th January 2021, the hospital performed a gastrographic test to see if something was stuck in her esophagus, but no abnormalities were found.”

On 19th January 2021, Chepkorir is said to have underwent a CT chest scan, and a report indicated that there was a ring-like foreign body in the right bronchi.

At this point, the parent showed the medical team that was handling the case a sample of the seed which she had choked on so that they could be aware of what to look out for.

On 22nd January 2021, Chepkorir was taken to theatre after her parent consented to a bronchoscopy procedure to remove the foreign body from her right bronchi.

“The bronchoscopy procedure was not successful and the medical team proceeded to perform a thoracotomy procedure which the parents had not consented to. After receiving Chepkorir at the theatre recovery room, Dr. Ernest explained to us that it was not a seed that was stuck in her airway, it was actually a tooth. The parents realised that Chepkorir had lost two of her upper incisive teeth while in theatre. Upon further questioning, Dr Ernest confided in us that he removed the two teeth as they were wobbly during the bronchoscopy procedure and so in total they had managed to remove the three teeth including the one from the lung,” the petition adds.

However, the petition alleges that the parents could only find two teeth and upon enquiring on the one which was supposedly taken from the lung, one Dr. Alfred Wanyonyi told them to stop asking questions and be grateful that their daughter was alive.

In the petition, the family alleges that after persisting on asking questions, Dr. Wanyonyi warned them that the nurses might hear them and they could do something bad to their child.

The doctor kept threatening them until they resigned from asking questions.

On 28th January 2021, Chepkorir was discharged from hospital and the parents kept going back for checkups as her condition did not improve that much. She kept having bouts of fever and chest congestions.

Between February and April, it is reported that there were numerous hospital visits including one admission.

Allegedly, there was no follow up CT scans to shown whether the procedures done were successful in removing the foreign object from the patient, despite being readmitted to the hospital with the same symptoms of respiratory distress.

On 10 May 2021 while playing outside with her peers, Chepkorir had a long coughing episode that culminated in her faiting.

She was rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. The petition claims that the parents were made to wait with the body of the deceased for over 12 hours which was traumatisng before she was finally moved to MTRH mortuary.

On 13th May 2021, an autopsy conducted on the body by one Doctor David Chumba found a seed in the right bronchi of the deceased as it was shown in the first CT chest report which had indicated the presence of the foreign body in the right bronchi, and that the right lung had badly been damaged.

Based on this autopsy report, the parents launched a complaint with the hospital management on account of negligence, given that the staff lied about removing the foreign body from Chepkorir, which was not the case.

The parents argue that the death of their child could have been avoided if due diligence was followed by the medical staff.

“The parents have made the best effort to have this mater addressed by the relevant authorities of all which have failed to give a satisfactory response. None of this issues raised in this petition is pending in any court of law, constitutional or any other legal body.”

The petitioner wants the Senate to investigate the happenings at the hospital that led to the loss of live and the doctors involved with a view of ensuring that justice prevails for the deceased and the family.

Consequently, Senate Speaker Amason Kingi directed the petition to Standing Committee on Health for consideration.

The committee has six calendar days from today to table its report in the Senate for its consideration.