Family seeks justice over kin's death in Ugandan based hospital

Vihiga, Kenya: A family in Vihiga County is seeking justice from a Uganda based hospital for failing to take good care of their kin while at the facility leading to his death two months ago.

Isaac Mungale, 49, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit immediately he reported at International Hospital Kampala, where the family suspects he was given wrong medication repeatedly leading to his untimely death.

According to documents that The Standard is in possession of, the late Mungale went to the hospital while driving and was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit for 26 days, where he used to read newspapers and undertake his IT related duties on a laptop.

"We are wondering why he was admitted at the ICU directly, yet he went to the hospital while driving his own vehicle and he continued to undertake his duties," said Peter Ludava, the family head.

According to the documents sent to the hospital's Medical Director Dr Andrew Sekitoleko, the deceased was operated on in the throat, a week earlier before the right tracheostomy tube was brought from Nairobi a day after he died.

"It is after the operation that you realised that you did not have the right size of the tracheostomy tube and started sourcing for it outside your hospital, and when you realised you didn’t have it, you were forced to source for it from Nairobi," part of the documents read.

Also in the report, it indicates the doctors at the facility diagnosed the deceased with HIV and yet retained him at the ICU instead of putting him in the special wards or a government facility where treatment is subsidised or free.

The documents further reveal that the deceased underwent seven X-rays in a span of 26 days, where only one copy of the chest X-ray has been produced and that 1300 disposable gloves were used on him, in addition to receiving 157 injections and 164 lab tests.

What worries the family is the Bill that the hospital brought forth, amounting to Sh3 million.

"We feel that our kin was not attended to as expected by the hospital and that they could have participated in one way or the other in his death," Charles Litu, brother to the deceased said.

Ludava says that the family pleaded with the hospital to release their kin from the ICU so that he could be taken to Mulago Hospital where the insurance company could have covered for his medical expenses but they refused to allow him leave the facility before he died.

In an autopsy that was supposed to be undertaken last Friday, the hospital failed to send their representative for the second time, prompting the family to petition the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council through the Kenya Medical and Dentists Practitioners Board to act and force the hospital to send a representative.

Dr Dixon Mchana, the western regional consultant pathologist, was supposed to undertake an autopsy of the body that is at the Vihiga Hospital Mortuary, but there was no representative from the hospital.

"Inquiry has to be done and we want to have an all-inclusive autopsy as this is a matter of concern to the family," said Dr Mchana.

In the hospital's response Dr Sekitoleko says that the deceased rammed into another vehicle while trying to park, and needed emergency treatment.

"He did indeed drive himself to our hospital, but he rammed into another car while trying to park and he had to be helped out to the emergency department semi-conscious and was immediately admitted to the Intensive Care Unit," says Sekitoleko.

Mungale worked in Uganda for nine months as an IT expert with Kenyan based Coretec Systems Company before his death on August 29.