How one night in hospital plunged my life into permanent darkness

On a cold Monday morning, George Muchiri carefully feels his way through a bunch of utility bill receipts.

He is looking for a water bill receipt to show a Nairobi City Water & Sewerage Company worker proof of payment.

Mr Muchiri then puts the documents back into a folder, where more receipts are neatly arranged.

“I have a sharp memory; I remember where I keep everything in this house,” he says, taking the folder back to his modest one-bedroom house in Nairobi’s Jerusalem estate.

His memory serves him where his eyes cannot. The 52-year-old father of two is blind. But he was not born this way.

“I was an ordinary civil servant living a happy life in Kajiado until one April evening when I was taken to a local hospital,” says Muchiri.

He was taken to Kajiado District Hospital on April 3, 2001.

Two days before, the then Ministry of Public Works employee had developed a severe headache and pain in his joints.

Described symptoms

“I described my symptoms to the doctor, who took notes as I talked but never examined me,” says Muchiri.

After scribbling down more notes, the doctor instructed the nurse on duty to admit him for the night.

“I was taken to a tiny ward with only four other patients. Two nurses came in and put me on quinine,” he recounts.

As a Christian, Muchiri requested a Bible. He read a few verses then lay back staring at the tube feeding the quinine into his body through his left hand and at the white walls before eventually falling asleep. 

These were the last things he saw. The next morning, he had lost his eyesight.

“I woke up the following morning wondering why they had not switched on the lights despite the movements  around me,” he recalls.

It took him a few minutes to realise that his eyesight was gone. When he did, he started shouting, telling anyone who cared to listen that he could not see.

An eye specialist was called in and confirmed that indeed, Muchiri had gone blind.

More tests

A few days later, he was taken to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) for more tests. He was admitted as doctors fought to restore his sight in vain.

Eventually, they gave up and broke the bad news to Muchiri - he would be blind for the rest of his life.

The eye specialists at KNH told Muchiri his blindness was caused by an overdose of quinine, a malaria treatment known to cause loss of eyesight and, in some cases, death.

“It was devastating to think that a careless doctor had caused my blindness. I cannot describe how I felt," he says.

Worse was to come. Muchiri lost his job in the civil service as the Government forced him to retire on medical grounds.

“I was relieved of my duties. I could not do anything since I was not informed on my rights,” he recalls.

Then friends, including his fiancee, deserted him in droves.

In one evening, his life had changed completely, and he was added to the growing statistics of victims of medical malpractice in Kenya.

Under investigation

According to the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (MPDB), which is mandated to hold doctors accountable for malpractice, 998 cases are under investigation.

More cases go unreported due to lack of or limited information on the process of reporting. Very few cases are successfully prosecuted.

Jobless, Muchiri joined the Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind to learn basic skills to help him live with his blindness. Here, he was also taught how to use braille.

Although the Government eventually started paying him pension in 2011, and he later got married and fathered two children, he says life has not been the same since that April visit to the hospital.

“My life took a turn for the worse because of that doctor's mistake. It has been in darkness ever since. I just wish he would have been more careful,” he says.