Expectant Siaya mother loses life and baby in operation

The family of a 20-year-old woman in Siaya who died while undergoing caesarean section is now crying for justice.

Frida Aoko from Kambajo, Bondo was on Tuesday morning referred to Yala Sub-county Hospital from Bondo hospital by medics.

According to the family, health officers from Bondo said they were unable to perform a caesarean due to machine failure.

Sources at the hospital told The Standard the clinical officer performed the operation because there were no doctors on duty to do it.

The facility is among those hit by the on-going doctor’s strike.

“We were referred to Yala by the nurse in charge after examinations revealed that Aoko could not deliver normally. On arrival at the Yala hospital, we registered and later she was admitted for surgery,” revealed Aoko’s  husband William Okwany.

LAST MOMENTS

Mr Okwany, 30, narrated to The Standard their last moments as a family with the first-time mother whom he claims looked strong when they left Bondo to Yala hospital.

“I was later asked by the nurses to go home and rest. They assured me that my wife would be all right with my brother’s wife, who had accompanied us,” he said.

Mr Okwany stated that later at night, he received a call from her brother’s wife who broke the sad news of his wife’s death.

According to Everline Achieng, the wife to Mr Okwany’s brother, the health officers called her to the office around 8pm to break the sad news.

“The surgery took longer than I expected, so I asked one of the nurses but she told me to exercise patience,” she said.

Later after an hour, they called me to their office and revealed that they had lost both mother and child during the process,” narrated the teary Achieng.

She told The Standard that the nurses said Mrs Okwany died a few minutes after she was injected with anaesthesia, which according to the health officials, had reacted with her body.

“The nurses said she passed away a few minutes after she was injected with the anesthesia which they claim had reacted with her system. They confirmed performing the caesarian section on Aoko’s dead body to remove the child,” said Achieng.

She was just fine when we got to the hospital because she is the one who gave the details for registration,” she explained.

The family said the bodies had been brought to the local Matangwe morgue in Bondo where they had appealed to the hospital officials to refer the bodies.

They accused the clinical officer who had performed the C-section of disappearing after the death of Aoko instead of facing the family with the truth.

MATERNAL AUDIT

The family also accused the clinical officer of using an overdose of   anesthesia and keeping the body from the family for several hours.

According to county Health Executive Olang’o Onudi, the county government will conduct a maternal audit before the weekend to determine whether the death of Aoko was due to negligence or unavoidable circumstances.

Dr Onudi maintained that the clinical officer who carried out the operation was trained and authorised to carry out the procedure and had done it successfully in the past.

“The clinical officers were trained in 2007 in reproductive health and those are special clinical officers allowed by the Government to carry out caesarean section,” he said.

But a medical doctor from Siaya who sought anonymity told to The Standard that the clinical officer should have referred the patient to a private facility for more accurate and proper procedures.

“With the ongoing doctors’ strike, it is not advisable for clinical officers to perform such sensitive procedures especially with lack of enough experience. He should have referred the patient,” added the doctor.

The death occurred only a day after a consultant surgeon, Dr James Obondi, warned that the ongoing crisis in public hospitals could spiral out of control as nurses and clinical officers on duty may be forced to handle ailments beyond their professional capability, resulting in medical disasters.