Mama Lucy Hospital ordered to present CCTV footage after man alleged pregnant wife bled for six hours before her death

While appearing before the Senate Health Committee on November 1, Robert Omondi - man whose wife died after delivering twins - told senators that the death was due to medical negligence at Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital.

The ordeal started at around 7 pm on September 6 when the wife went into labour. At Kayole DO Clinic, doctors realised that her blood pressure was high therefore referring her to Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital.

At the hospital, doctors doctors said that they would wait for 20 minutes for the blood pressure to stabilise before starting any treatment. Meanwhile Omondi, 28, who had been blocked at the gate and helplessly watched as his wife walked - albeit with struggles  to the hospital, forced his way into the facility.

The stayed at the hospital and at around midnight, he was told to leave. The following morning (September 7) at 6:40 am, he found his wife was being transferred to the theatre for a Caesarean section. He was told to relax, prompting him to go home to prepare for the return of his family. At 8 am, she delivered two boys weighing KSh3.8kg and 3.9kg.

"I immediately left the house for the hospital to see my bundles of joy. I found the twins in the same tiny bed with their mother, who was on a drip.

"On closer look, I realised she was bleeding and that no medicine was flowing from the drip, only a backflow of blood. I notified the nurse about the bleeding and backflow but she did not attend to her,” Omondi told the senators.

A teary Omondi added: “I struggled and removed the drip. More blood kept flowing and so I decided to use a piece of cotton wool to stop the backflow [to no avail]. I did not know what to do next. It was almost noon."

He said that not even the pressure of his relatives and fellow patients who joined in reprimanding the doctors to do something to stop the bleeding would sway the doctors, who were going on with other things as usual.

Transfer to Kiambu hospital

It is was only later that a group of doctors came to attend to Anyango, who at this point was screaming in pain. At 7 pm, however, doctors told Omondi that his wife had been put on oxygen and was to be transferred to another hospital for specialised treatment.

For Omondi's wife to be transferred to either Machakos Level Five Hospital or Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital, he had to pay KSh200,000 upfront. He told the doctors he could not raise the money, and that was when Kiambu Level Five Hospital came into the picture.

But the problems continued, they had to wait for an ambulance from 8 pm. When the ambulance - which he was told had ferried another patient to Kenyatta National Hospital - it was around midnight. Anyango's elder sister remained with the tins at Mama Lucy.

The husband alleged that they got lost along the way and eventually reached Kiambu at around 1:10 am on September 8.

“At the ICU, I saw and overheard the nurses arguing about the size of the oxygen pipe that had been used and how the patient had been handled. The Kiambu hospital nurses were showing the two young nurses from Mama Lucy who had accompanied me what they should have done. At that point I realised it might be over for her," Omondi said as tears rolled down his cheeks.

The committee heard that Anyango was pronounced dead at around 7 am on September 8.

Doctors deny negligence claims

But appearing before the committee on Thursday, November 10, doctors dismissed Omondi's claims of negligence on the part, insisting that the patient had high blood pressure, and so they had to wait before performing a surgical procedure.

A gynecologist told the senators that Anyango could not deliver normally since she had severe pre-eclampsia.

Contrary to what Omondi told the senators, the doctor said that they noticed bleeding at 1 pm. In any case, he said that it was impossible for Omondi to notice bleeding at 8 am, since the wife was in theatre at this time.

He dismissed claims by Omondi that he had to try and stop the bleeding himself, arguing that a nurse would never tell the husband to stop Anyango's bleeding.

The doctor also dismissed allegations that on their way to transfer Anyango to Kiambu, they got lost. "The ambulance driver did not get lost on his way to Kiambu hospital as alleged by the husband, those are just fabricated lies. Patient was operated at 6am and stayed in theatre to 10am and was under observation, she was not bleeding," he said.

CCTV footage

Consequently, the committee chairperson Senator Jackson Mandago ordered the hospital to present the CCTV footage of that fateful day, to substantiate Omondi's claims.

The CCTV is expected to tell if the patient was bleeding profusely.