Hospital on the spot over mysterious death of eight-year-old

Paul Njoroge and his wife. Njoroge is the father of the late eight year old Peter Kago who succumbed who died mysteriously after being booked corrective surgery. [Edward Kiplimo,Standard]

It is two weeks since Paul Njoroge’s son died but he is yet to come to terms with the circumstances.

One moment the ever jovial boy was alive though unable to kick due to a leg injury then the next morning he went into a coma and never woke up.

That morning of May 20, eight-year-old Peter Kago was wheeled to the operating room at 7 am. He was set to undergo a surgery to join his right thigh bone which had broken a day before.

It is reported that the operation never took place, and Kago went into a coma while on the operation table at Ladnan Hospital, in what is suspected to be an overdose of anaesthesia.

“From what my wife overheard, he was injected twice with the anaesthesia,” said Njoroge.

Kago is said to have started convulsing exhibiting epileptic-like behaviours and afterwards went into a comma.

He never woke up. He died six days later at Kenyatta National Hospital.

The events of Kago’s death started with a fall of a child while leaving church on May 12, some meters to their home in Kayole, around Matopeni Police Station.

Njoroge said the boy was trying to jump over a ditch that separated him from their home. The ditch had been dug up by a contractor currently tarmacking a road close to their place.

“I partly blame the contractor. He knew people live in this area and never bothered to have a way which people can cross to access their homes,” Njoroge lamented.

Kago is said to have miscalculated his jump and landed badly on the ditch leaving him with a broken thigh bone according to the X-ray.

He was quickly rushed to Mama Lucy Hospital where first aid was administered by bandaging his injured leg to limit movement.

“We were told at Mama Lucy that a ‘metal’ to stabilise his leg to heals faster would be introduced. But after waiting for some hours, we were referred to Ladnan Hospital since the theatres at Mama Lucy were full,” said Njoroge.

The ‘metal’ being referred to by Njoroge is medically known as intramedullary nailing where a rod is surgically inserted into the broken bone and screwed to hold the broken bone into place.

With time, the rod can be removed once the bone heals.

The lack of space in theatre is what made Njoroge transfer his son to Ladnan Hospital in Pangani where he was scheduled for surgery on Monday morning at 6 am.

“That night he was okay, we laughed and talked as usual.  I just cannot understand how we later got a call that he is in a comma,” said Njoroge trying hard not to break down.

“When we asked we were told he just reacted to the drug he was given before the operation.”

A post mortem report seen by The Standard performed at Kenyatta National Hospital mortuary on May 22, stated the cause of death, linking the hospital to a poor procedure in administering the anaesthesia.

“As a result of my examination, I formed the opinion that the cause of death was a procedure-related death-possible reaction to spinal anaesthesia,” reads the report in part.

The report found that the boy’s right lung had hemorrhagic congestion on the lower lobe: “The brain had oedema with features of mild increased intracranial pressure.”

When The Standard inquired from Ladnan on how the patient was handled, an administrator said the facility cannot comment on the issue because ‘he(Kago) was not pronounced dead at the hospital.’

Njoroge has already reported the death at both Kayole and Pangani Police Stations.