Woman recalls how medics abandoned her during labour

By Ally Jamah

When Ms Stella Karoki was rushed to a mission hospital in Kiambu County in May, she expected a few hours of labour before delivering her second baby.

Instead, she claims, she was abandoned for 10 hours before three nurses were forced to assist her leading to the baby’s death.

Stella claims she was in labour on May 25 and 26. Unable to bear the pain of prolonged labour, she attempted to push the baby out as she screamed for help.

A doctor and nurse rushed to her side and found the baby was stuck in the birth canal.

They tried to force the baby out but dislocated the infant’s shoulder while pulling it out. The baby girl died hours later.

“I blame the nurses who abandoned me during the critical hours of labour,” Stella says. “They left my baby to die. They were merciless.”

Her fiancé Mr Silvanus Osoro, a lawyer, is inconsolable: “It hurts to lose a baby so casually. I am just trying to be strong for the sake of my wife. The pain is intolerable.”

The couple has been together for four years and have one child Meshack, 2, who is in kindergarten.

Osoro recalls how he was excited last year when Stella told him she was carrying their second child.

“I felt so good,” he says. “My love for my fiancée strengthened further. The thought that I was going to be the father of another child was just too good.”

But nine months of waiting ended in tragedy. Stella’s gynaecologist advised her that she was due around May 25, the day she was admitted.

Her decision to deliver at the mission hospital, however, proved tragic for the family.

Speaking at their Kiambu home, the mother of one narrated how she was allegedly abandoned for six and a half hours after the water broke.

“I was ready to deliver at around 9pm on Saturday (May 25th) after the water broke,” she says.

Overwhelmed

“Despite the strong labour pains I was experiencing, the nurses abandoned me until 3:30am. I kept calling the three nurses on duty to come and check on me and help me deliver. But they ignored me. By 10pm, two of the nurses had gone to sleep while one was listening to music on her mobile phone. It was as if I didn’t exist,” she claimed.

She further claimed the nurses had earlier sent away Osoro, who wanted to stay by her side to wait for the delivery of their baby.

Alone, in pain and increasingly angry, Stella continued calling out for help. At about 2am, a trainee doctor who was doing rounds in the wards examined her. He instructed the nurse who was awake to help Stella deliver the baby.

But the nurse examined her and declared that she was not ready to deliver. Overwhelmed by pain Stella began to push.

“I managed to push the baby until the head was out,” she says. “But I could not push further. The baby was stuck. I was in intense pain. I screamed for help several times. This time the nurse came. Realising it was an emergency she called the doctor.”

“The doctor and the nurses attempted to deliver my baby but couldn’t,” Stella says.

“They forced the baby out of the birth canal using their bare hands. It was so painful that I passed out. When I regained consciousness I learnt that the baby was pulled out and rushed to the High Dependency Unit. Later she died.”

Medical report

The medical report attributed the baby’s death to “distress during birth”. The baby weighed 3.7kg, just 300g above average size.

Angry at the treatment his fiancée got from the hospital, Osoro confronted the management over what he says is professional negligence.  He says hospital administrators then convened a staff meeting the following Monday and summoned three nurses who were on duty.

Osoro claims “The nurses admitted their mistakes and were remorseful about the incident. For some reason, I felt pity for them despite the cruel thing they had done to me. I noticed that all three were young and have probably not even given birth yet.”

The couple plans to take up the matter with the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board.

“We are not motivated by anger or revenge,” the couple says, “We just want to expose what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. I want hospitals and medical personnel to be more careful when giving treatment to avoid unnecessary loss of lives or accidents. I don’t want my pain and tragedy to be faced by any other person.”