The hole no one saw: Inside life-saving heart surgery

Doctors at the Mediheal hospital performing a heart surgery on a patient September 27, 2022. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

For years, Jackline Mudeizi lived in a body that constantly betrayed her: breathless nights, relentless fatigue, and a heart that seemed to race against time. Doctors reassured her. Clinics prescribed medication. Some told her it was stress. Others blamed exhaustion. None saw what was quietly threatening her life.

It was not until a traumatic pregnancy, the loss of her twins, and repeated hospital visits that the truth finally emerged. Jackline, a 33-year-old mother of four from Vihiga County, had been living with a rare and complex congenital heart defect that should have been detected and corrected years earlier.