A night at KNH’s chaotic casualty wing

By DANN OKOTH

An eerie silence hangs over the usually busy emergency unit. The hustle and bustle appears to have died off – albeit momentarily – and so do the often-frightening sights that characterise the receiving area at the referral hospital.

As the day wears on, doctors, nurses, and support staff prepare to call it a day with female employees thronging the bursting washrooms to spruce up before leaving.

Patients at Kenyatta National Hospital’s Emergency and Accidents Unit. [PHOTO: STAFFORD ONDEGO/STANDARD]

The day had been hectic for majority of the staff, a clerk at the records desk tells me as he flips through a pile of papers while signing off. The workers, he says, had grappled with an unusually high number of emergency cases, explaining their eagerness to leave.

But they leave behind a scene that is not for the faint-hearted. Stretchers draped in bloodstained linen line the entire length of the corridor.

Urine, blood and vomit swamp the entire floor, making movement across the unit a precarious undertaking. The lone cleaner is clearly no match for the mess.

At the farthest corner, an abandoned patient groans in pain. He kicks his feet and feebly waves to call for help. Whenever he can, he mumbles a few words asking for a glass of water or milk. He has been lying here since 6pm, I learn.

Welcome to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) Emergency and Accidents Unit.

It is 8pm on a Saturday evening as I arrive at the unit, also known as Casualty, to experience first-hand the operations of the unit and also see what patients and their kin go through.

The patients at the unit and their minders left unattended on the benches huddle together to beat the cold. They are victims of the melee and confusion that characterises a changeover from day to night duty staff.

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