Kick all ill-mannered medical workers out of our hospitals

KTN’s latest exposé, which, among others, revealed that a woman delivered unattended on the floor of Mama Lucy Hospital, Nairobi, was shocking to say the least.

The pain the woman went through negated the ideals of Universal Health Coverage, Beyond Zero and Linda Mama campaigns. It also showed that we are far from stemming maternal and child mortality rates.

Yet, for all the wrong reasons, Mama Lucy Hospital has been in the news for a long time. In 2017, medical staff at the hospital were accused of declining to attend to an opposition supporter who had been shot by the police.

The same year, two nurses were attacked by patients for ostensibly declining to attend to them because they had other pressing issues.

Last month, Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko camped at the hospital following public complaints regarding the attitude of nurses towards patients and lack of medicines.

The latest case is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It has resulted in the suspension of five nurses who were on duty that day.

The hospital failed the woman by making her to deliver without the assistance she had sought. Such negligence borders on the criminal, for a life could easily have been lost.

Had there been any complications during delivery, either the mother or child, or both, could have died. Still, the possibility of the newborn developing neonatal sepsis remains high.

A similar case was reported in Bungoma in 2013, only it was worse because nurses were recorded insulting and slapping a woman who was in labour.

Other cases of negligence in hospitals that threaten lives have been reported. Misdiagnosis and wrong surgical procedures have also been highlighted.

At Kenyatta National Hospital, a head operation was done on the wrong patient in 2018.

In a nutshell, public hospitals have been endangering lives daily, wittingly and unwittingly.

There is an urgent need for the Ministry of Health bosses to flex their muscles to ensure patients get the services they deserve, including being handled with dignity.

Besides providing hospitals with the right equipment and medicines, there is need to inject a dose of professionalism in health workers; to remind them that their work is to save, not ruin human lives.

Medical workers who go against the Hippocratic oath must be dealt with firmly. Those who show little regard for human life should be sent home, and preferably to jail. They have no business pretending to take care of patients.