‘This is not happening to us; it must be a dream’

By Mercy Kahenda

Baby Salma Waithera is an infant in great pain; a pain that refuses to be soothed by her mother’s sweet lullabies. Her feeble cry as her mother struggles to clean a gaping wound on her left leg would move a stonehearted sadist to tears.

The eight-week old attempts to suckle, but the pain won’t let her. And so she resorts to crying but she seems to have emptied her tear glands. “This child is in great pain. I don’t know what to do,” is all Rachel Aluvisia, Salma’s mother can say.

For eight weeks, James Njuguna and his wife Aluvisia have not known happiness; they have not had enough sleep. Salma’s left leg is rotting following an injection she received at a private hospital in Nakuru County where she had been rushed for treatment suffering from fever.

Now doctors say the leg has to be amputated, warning that the worsening condition could spread to other parts of the body.

Baby Salma, who has not known the peace of being born, may never experience the joy of freely crawling and running around her parents courtesy of wrong medication.

First born

For the young couple, the birth of their first child has brought with it pain and agony in the family.

“We are supposed to celebrate the birth of our first child. Everything seemed alright during and after pregnancy but now we live in regret because we don’t know what will happen to our baby,” says Aluvisia.

They blame a doctor at Nakuru Nursing Home who attended Salma when they took her for treatment against fever.

“The moment they injected my baby in the leg to extract some blood sample for testing, that is when trouble started,” Njuguna told The Standard on Sunday during an interview at their home in Nakuru town.

According to the couple, the baby’s leg started swelling from the knee upwards and within hours it turned black. This was on July 27, only nine days after Aluvisia successfully gave birth to bouncing baby girl.

“My daughter had fever and difficulties in breathing. They decided to get blood sample from her leg,” explained Njuguna. According to him, a general medical practitioner they found at the hospital said they did not have a pediatrician at the facility so he offered to call one.

After examining the baby, the doctor ruled that she was having a severe infection and immediately placed her on oxygen and proceeded to extract the blood sample for further laboratory tests. “That is when things started going wrong for my baby. The swelling begun and the leg started turning bluish, then black,” recalled Njuguna. But what followed the next morning left the couple wondering whether the hospital staff knew what they were doing.

“On her second day of admission, the pediatrician came and ordered removal of the drip saying it was meant for adults. I removed socks from the leg and showed the doctor who immediately concluded that my baby had developed sepsis and that they were treating high body temperature. When I inquired what that was, he dismissed me saying I should find out on Google,” said the distraught mother. After a month at the hospital, the couple decided to transfer the baby to Kijabe Mission Hospital. This was after the doctor at Nakuru Nursing Home brought in a surgeon to amputate the baby.

On arrival at Kijabe, Njuguna says a doctor who attended the baby was shocked, blaming the condition to negligence.

Another dilemma was that in the medical report from the hospital, there were details concerning the baby’s rotting leg. So doctors at Kijabe were left with no option but to treat the baby based on the condition she was presently in.

“I do not know the exact cause of the condition. I do not know how she was presented to the previous hospital. I do not know exactly what was done there. I just know how she was presented to Kijabe and how she is right now and that is what we are treating,” Doctor Erik Hansen told The Standard on Sunday.

He said the baby had developed dead tissues on her left leg and lower part of her right leg, a condition that cannot be treated or reversed. “The left leg of the child has dead tissue and the tissue on the lower part of her right leg is dying,” he said.

Though the doctor says the tissues are dead, the hospital is currently treating the wound on the left knee by dressing of the wound, physical therapy and nutritional support. According to the doctor, the child would undergo amputation after healing of the wound to enable easy identification of the dead tissue that will be cut or left to decrease by itself.

“Operating on the child is only permitted after determining where dead tissues die at. It is not advisable to do it now, it’s better to perform any operation when the child is a bit older,” said the doctor adding that upon operation, the child would require prosthesis on both her legs.

“A special shoe will be required on her left leg but I am not able to tell whether it will be below or above the knee,” he said.  After weeks trying to contact her, Miriam Maina, director of Nakuru Nursing Home denied negligence but acknowledges that the baby was treated at the facility. She dismissed allegations that the baby was put on adult drip.

“There are different drips like medicines for malaria and a patient can never know what type of drip someone is on. The couple transferred her, failing to comply with advice of our surgeon,” said Maina.

When asked why the medical report given to the parent did not mention the condition of the baby’s legs, she said the two doctors who treated the baby are the only people who can talk about that.

Made diagnosis

Doctor Kemei who attended to baby Salma immediately she was admitted at the facility said he examined the child, made diagnosis and advised a child specialist to handle the case. “I received the patient but a specialist was brought who handled all the treatment,” said the doctor. “That was all I did.”

But when contacted, Dr Stella Kalunde Kimotho, the child specialist said when she was called to attend to the baby, she had already been seen by another doctor. However, when pressed further on the medical report, she referred the team to the hospital administrator.

“It is the hospital which can talk about that. I have no further comment on this issue,” she said.

The consultant doctor said she was not able to share information on the condition of the child, citing professional ethics. “Before I was called to treat the child, there was a doctor who was handling her case. I am aware of the condition of the child but I cannot share that information because it is private and confidential,” she told The Standard on Sunday. And while the doctors take the young family round in circles concerning what really transpired, baby Salma’s legs continue to rot as the young couple ponders where to get justice.

“I enjoyed her birth and her first days before this happened to her,” said Aluvisia. Her husband who was working in a hotel in Nakuru has left employment to help in taking care of the baby. “The child requires attention that her mother alone cannot provide. Her life is more important than my job and that is why I have decided to stay at home and give her a hand of help,” said Njuguna.

The couple takes turns to cuddle the baby, who just won’t stop crying; a parental duty that is taking a toll on the young couple. They hardly eat anything, as the thought of their baby’s condition put them under immense pressure and heartache.

“This is not happening to us. It must be a dream. This is our first baby and we really looked forward to having the child. Our world has been shattered,” said Njuguna.