I lost my hand due to negligence, woman claims

By Maureen Mudi

Twenty-four year old Ms Mwanamisi Komba looks at a stub that used to be her left arm and tears stream down her cheeks.

Last January, she walked to the Coast General Hospital with two normal arms. But when she left several days later, the left hand had been amputated. For the rest of her life, she will be disabled.

She speaks bitterly and blames doctors at the hospital of negligence that led to amputation.

Komba spoke in Mombasa through her elder brother, Reuben, who did all the explanation as she seemed too traumatised to talk about.

The woman hails from Mwanguda in Msambweni District, but was, until January, married and living at Pangani in Lunga Lunga Division.

Meagre income

Her husband has since left her after her hand was amputated. At Pangani where she lived with her husband and two children aged six and four, she used to burn charcoal to earn a living.

"My husband was not in gainful employment and we depended on the meagre income the charcoal business brought to sustain ourselves," she said in a mixture of Kiswahili and Duruma.

She said: "We raised about Sh5,000 in two months if business was good. Though that was not enough to sustain us, we still managed to survive."

In December, she travelled to her home in Mwanguda to deliver her third child under the care of traditional birth attendants. But she later developed health complications.

Painful rash

"My baby died soon after birth and I developed a persistent cough, painful rash on my breast and chest pains," she said.

When the symptoms persisted, she sought her brother at Likoni and was taken to Likoni Health Centre. But her condition got worse and she was transferred to the Coast Provincial General Hospital breathing with difficulty.

On January 17, she was received at the emergency wing of the hospital and later admitted to Ward Two at about 10pm.

Normally, the staff who receive such a patient track a vein to fix a drip line before admission. But in her case, things started going wrong and the hand started swelling.

She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and put on treatment. But her brother kept insisting that something had gone wrong with her hand and it had continued swelling even with the drip line fixed.

"I tried to have them attend to her as an emergency. My sister was wailing, but the nurse rudely answered that she would not see her," he said.

The next morning, when the nurse in charge was about to hand over, she was said to have been shocked when she examined the patient’s hand.

Costly mistake

"The nurse was shocked and shouted: ‘My God’. She then quickly removed a piece of glove which she noted had been inserted together with the injection needle. But the damage had already been done," said Komba.

After three days, the patient was taken for an X-ray and it was established that the hand had developed gangrene — a condition that causes decay of soft tissue due to lack of oxygen in the blood.

Her brother was later asked to authorise amputation, but he initially declined and went to seek advice from the family.

Reuben also contacted the media and complained about negligence. He claims he was called in the presence of the doctor in-charge on January 22 to decide amputation on behalf of her sister.

"By the time we realised my sister’s life was on the line and she could die if we did not act, she was counseled and hand amputated," he said.

After the operation on January 23, the patient was observed for two months and discharged without charge.

Provincial Medical Officer Maurice Simiyu, to whom the Coast General Hopsital referred us, said yesterday the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board has taken up the matter. He promised to investigate how far the case has gone.

Court case

Reuben has approached law firms, but one told him to get a doctor to present her sister’s report and then fill a P3 form.

She was also told to pay Sh20,000 before a file could be opened and suit taken to court.

Her children are living with their grandparents. The eldest is in nursery school.

"I am getting frustrated and losing hope. If only I could get a way to ensure my children get food and also sustain myself, I would thank God," she says.