Scare over Raila’s life

By Standard Team

Prime Minister Raila Odinga checked into Nairobi Hospital on Monday complaining of intermittent headache, doctors checked him out, and then concluded he needed urgent operation. The examination led by Dr David Livingstone Oluoch-Olunya, one of Kenya’s top neurosurgeons, found he was suffering from a brain condition called ‘subdural hematoma’, and quickly arranged to drill the left side of his head to ease the pressure on his brain.

Raila told the doctors he recalls accidentally banging his head on his car door three weeks ago. But at first it seemed to him a harmless freak accident, which he did not think much about it, even when the headache troubled him at an official assignment hours later.

Yesterday, the PM lay on his hospital bed, the effects of anesthesia clearing, surrounded by his wife Ida, and other family members. He would later sit up on his hospital bed to radiate a smile, assuring he was well with him – captured by his official press unit.

The scare on Raila’s life caused panic as confusion reigned on his state, especially following a claim he fell at a public engagement. The situation was aggravated by reports he was in the Intensive Care Unit, where he probably was undergoing close management and observation after leaving the threatre.

Visitors restricted

It did not help matters that his office at first told the country he had just been admitted because of ‘fatigue’, and that "he is in good condition enough to come to the office and work as usual if he so wanted."

Dr Olunya’s team estimates he would be in the hospital for five or more days, during which visitors are restricted to allow rest and quick recovery.

"A team of doctors got together and within a short period agreed it was necessary to carry out a minor procedure on the left side of the head to relieve the pressure. The procedure has been carried out successfully and the PM is doing fine,’’ said Dr Olunya, who chairs the Kenya Chapter of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies.

"The pressure was relieved when some fluid was removed through a small opening in the skull," other sources told The Standard.

Independent sources revealed though the condition could be life threatening, Raila’s prognosis is said to have showed it was milder, but nonetheless requiring urgent intervention: that is why it could not wait.

According to Internet medical sources, acute cases of the condition known more in its abbreviated form, SDH, bear a mortality rate of 60-80 per cent.

"It is a form of traumatic brain injury in which blood gathers within the outermost membrane on the skull and the layer enveloping the brain,’’ the Internet source says of the acute form of what struck Raila.

Donning a surgical cap, which appeared to conceal the dressing on the incision on his scalp, the PM fought off pain as he talked with visitors at the North Wing of the hospital to wish him well. They included Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, his office staff led by Permanent Secretary Mohammed Isahakia, several Cabinet ministers, friends and relatives.

Olunya said the trauma might have been caused by the car incident. Though his statement did not cover what the medical procedure entailed except to say its intention, other sources familiar with the trauma said it must have been removal of a brain clot.

"He went to the hospital complaining of headache where doctors took him for a scan and later conducted the operation," said the source at the Nairobi Hospital.

Olunya was emphatic the PM was in stable condition and pictures of him from the hospital showed him in form. Raila, a workaholic has no public record of a medical condition, and is not only one of Kenya’s most visible politicians, but one with the tightest diary.

Unofficial sources

"They said he had a clot that put pressure on the vessels that caused the internal bleeding. Apparently the clot was caused by hitting his head on something," said a close friend, who saw him at the hospital.

"As some of you may have heard from unofficial sources, I would like to inform the nation that the Prime Minister is unwell but he is fit and in a stable condition," said the PM’s communications officer Dennis Onyango, earlier in the day.

He then explained that the Prime Minister went to the hospital complaining of general exhaustion.

The statement read: "After tests, doctors started treating him for fatigue and then recommended complete bed rest for a few days and they will confine him to hospital for that period."

The statement, however, did not mention the operation only for another press briefing to be called by the doctors at Nairobi Hospital to stop stem the tide of rumours, reportedly after consultations with Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o.

Raila attended the Grand Coalition Parliamentary Group meeting on Monday, but left early to participate in the reclamation of Nairobi Dam where the local community was uprooting the water hyacinth choking the water mass.

Sources told The Standard the PM complained of headache before his driver and aide George Oduor rushed him to the Nairobi Hospital. Only Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi was allowed to see the PM on Monday night, and all visitors were later turned away.

Raila’s doctors did not answer questions from reporters and did not specify the exact condition. Dr Olunya was accompanied by another neurosurgeon Dr Mahmood Quresh and Nairobi Hospital Chief Executive Dr Cleopa Mailu.

President Kibaki has also been admitted to the same hospital several times for treatment and surgery, following his near-fatal road accident in 2002. Raila ironically was instrumental in the plan for his emergency treatment as well as airlift to London for advanced care. The last time Odinga was hospitalised was in 2008, when he underwent an eye operation in Germany.

Sources say Raila told his security detail as they left Nairobi Dam, along Mbagathi Road, to drive to the hospital for a check-up because he was feeling unusually unwell.

At the hospital the PM waited for the neural consultants who arrived a few minutes later.

The other Cabinet members who visited him included James Orengo, Dalmas Otieno, Henry Kosgei, Otieno Kajwang’ and Nyong’o. Finance PS Joseph Kinyua, Isahakia, his Assistant Minister Alfred Khangati, and his official advisors Adhu Awiti and Miguna Miguna also visited him. The US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger also visited the PM.

A statement from the Prime Minister Press Service said: "Mr Odinga was upbeat and jovial and he recounted to friends how he ended up in hospital after a public function at the Nairobi Dam."

The PM said he never expected to be booked in when he checked into hospital and had looked forward to a quick routine treatment then leaving the hospital to go and watch World Cup matches.

Talking to the Chief Executive Officer of Nairobi Hospital Dr Cleopa Mailu, the PM said he was ready to leave hospital yesterday and was surprised the doctors insisted he needed to be booked in.

One of his relatives Connie Sigei walked into the hospital and later told journalists: "He is doing well. I brought for him boiled maize, he ate, drank water, and asked for more," with a smile, as she left the hospital. The PM’s son, Fidel, was also with him, but did not talk to journalists.

Dr Olunya’s curriculum vitae indicate he is an Associate Member, Society of British Neurological Surgeons, affiliate of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and Kenya Medical Association, as well as World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. He lectures at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Surgery and is a garlanded Advanced Trauma Care Instructor.