How irresponsible nurse cut short boy’s life with lethal injection
A patient receives an injection. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The doctor who carried out the operation told the board that he never instructed the nurse to inject the boy with the drug pethidine.
- The board was told that the nurse who administered the unprescribed injection disappeared after realising his mistake.
When Christianoh Marwah was taken to Ram Hospital in Kisii on June 19, 2010, his parents expected him to be released shortly afterwards as his illness appeared mild.
And even when a medical review indicated that he needed minor surgery to take care of his illness, Mr Charles Mosabi and his wife knew their first-born son would soon be well and on his way home. But this was not was to be. Marwah never walked out of the hospital alive.
In a complaint filed at the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, Marwah’s parents blamed the hospital and its nursing staff for his death, which they attributed to negligence.
NURSE MADE A MISTAKE
According to testimonies presented before the board, Marwah died after a nurse administered drugs that had not been prescribed by the doctor.
The recommended surgery was successful under Dr Nicholas Tinega. The boy was awake when he left the operating theatre and spoke with his parents, assuring them that he would be going home with them shortly.
Dr Tinega then left as his patient did not need his immediate attention.
But shortly afterwards, Marwah’s condition started to deteriorate, leaving him in distress.
The parents’ attempt to get assistance from the hospital’s nursing staff got a cold reception and they sought help from another doctor who reviewed the patient.
UNPRESCRIBED INJECTION
The doctor found that the distress was a result of an injection the patient had been given by the nurse.
Dr Tinega, who carried out the operation, told the board that he never instructed the nurse to inject the boy with the drug pethidine and could not understand why the injection was administered.
Dr Tinega told the board that the patient may have developed respiratory distress as a result of the injection.
The nurse should have alerted the doctor for prompt resuscitation which could have made a difference, he said.
The board was told that the nurse who administered the unprescribed injection, and whose name was given as Mr Bichanga, disappeared after realising his mistake.
In its verdict, the board found the hospital guilty of negligence which led to the death of the child.
It ordered the management to immediately commence talks with the bereaved family on compensation.
It further ordered the hospital to settle the cost of the committee’s sitting, which amounted to Sh250,000.
