A 26-year-old woman died on Saturday from health complications at the Nakuru County Referral and Teaching Hospital (NCRTH) after undergoing an emergency cesarean section.
In a statement, Nakuru County Chief Executive Committee member of Health Roselyn Mungai said that Elizabeth Njoroge was admitted to the health facility on Friday, 11am, and was scheduled to undergo surgery on Saturday.
“Ms Njoroge was admitted with a postdated pregnancy and was in the early stages of labor,” read the statement in part.
Mungai added that the surgery was completed at 11:30 am and Elizabeth safely delivered a baby boy before experiencing unexpected complications.
“She was promptly resuscitated, incubated and placed in a ventilator,” she said, adding that Elizabeth had low oxygen levels and breathing complications.
However, the hospital is said to have delayed transferring Elizabeth to an ICU unit because there were no beds available until 3:00pm.
Elizabeth then met her untimely death at 5:41pm after going into cardiac arrest.
Mungai added that after conducting a case audit, “the complications were neither predictable nor preventable”.
Elizabeth’s family however, believes that her death was a result of negligence because they were even notified of the demise.
Elizabeth’s husband, Benson Kinyanjui, said that their journey to the hospital on Good Friday raised no alarm, and his wife was in good health.
He faulted the facility for keeping the sad news under wraps for hours.
“From 1:30, the ambulance was arriving at 3:00pm. For an emergency, for someone who is not breathing, it took two hours? Two hours?” he posed while speaking to NTV.
Elizabeth’s mother, Susan Wanjiku, demanded the facility to clear the air on the matter, calling for justice to be served.
“They had taped my daughter’s eyes and she had bitten her tongue because it was black. She has died and I will bury her but noody else will die here,” she said.
Meanwhile, CEC Mungai admitted that the facility’s lack of apt communication was a blunder.
“We recognise and deeply regret the delay in communicating with the family during the critical period immediately following the surgery,” she said.
