Grief at Njoro Girls after Form Four student dies mysteriously

Njoro Girls high school main entrance in Njoro town, Nakuru county. [File, Standard]

Mystery surrounds the death of a Form Four student at Njoro Girls Senior School in Nakuru County.

Brenda Akinyi, who succumbed to her illness on Friday morning, died three years after another girl, Whitney Njoki, her classmate, died of illness too.

Although Njoki died at school in March 2023, Akinyi lost her life while undergoing treatment at Nakuru Level V Hospital. Both reportedly bled from the mouth and nose before dying.

Millicent Anyango, the mother of the teenager, said she got shocking news that, prior to her death, her daughter had been sick for three days, but no one contacted her or took care of her.

She said that it was by God’s grace that her son Allan Mulanda had gone to the school to do maintenance services on the sound system when he was informed that her sister was sick.

“My son called me on January 29, saying he has been told that Akinyi had been sick for three days and she was neither eating nor attending classes,” Anyango told The Sunday Standard.

She said she could believe that the school’s administration would watch as her daughter got ill, without contacting her.

At the school, Anyango alleged that the teachers were more concerned about how she got the news and whether it was from a nurse or a class teacher, rather than Akinyi’s Millicent Anyango, the mother of the teenager.

“When they brought her to me, she was weak. I asked her questions but she was not answering. She only nodded.

‘‘I rushed her to the nearest hospital but she was referred to Nakuru Level V Hospital,” she said.

At the hospital, Anyango said that Akinyi’s condition worsened. Results showed she had blood infections. She vomited when given medicine or water and shivered. She was put in the emergency room.

Anyango described a horror night where she struggled to get assistance for her daughter. She said that Akinyi died in the morning, in her arms.

Anyango wants answers. She wonders where the matron, school nurse, administration and the class teacher were when her daughter got ill and was at the dormitory for at least three days.

She said her daughter was their future and she wanted to be a teacher for a special school, a nurse to assist the sick, or a journalist.

She recalled their last encounter on January 23, when she visited the school and her daughter told of a dream to join the university before they took photographs together.

“She promised me that she would score at least a B. She gave me some of her documents and asked me to keep them safe. She also urged me to tell her father to plan for her future at the university,” said Anyango in tears.

Anyango, who sells fish at Njoro town, said she had been left by a friend, a humble person and a God-fearing person and she would never get someone else like her.

Mulanda said that if he had not gone to the school, his sister would have died in school.

He said that usually when he went to school, his sister would be the first person to greet him, but that day he did not see her and assumed she was busy.

He questioned how students could be more concerned than teachers who had been given responsibilities to care for the students.

Mulanda said that when the Deputy Head Teacher Nancy Kabata found out that he was the one who reported the matter, she became rude to him, only to later apologise after learning about Akinyi’s death.

“I have no problem with the school but this situation is not new in the school. They have not learnt their lessons and unless they change, other students would find themselves in similar situations,” he said.