KNH CEO claims doctors attended to Ken Walibora within 10 minutes
Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) CEO Evanson Kamuri has refuted claims of negligence that allegedly led to the death of prolific Swahili writer Ken Walibora.
Speaking to the Senate Health committee via Zoom, Kamuri gave a blow-by-blow account of how Walibora lost his life at the facility.
“We did what we could do that was humanly possible. The patient was bleeding and had multiple serious injuries to the face and was attended to at 10.10 am,” Dr Kamuri said.
He further told the Michael Mbito-led committee that Walibora was attended to within 10 minutes of getting to the hospital.
Walibora was wheeled to the Acute Resuscitation Room within the casualty area, which is more like a semi ICU.
At 10:10am, Kamuri said, the critically ill patient was reviewed by a medical team and was found to have suffered severe injuries to his upper limb.
At 4pm, they were forced to take him to the main ICU for incubation after his condition deteriorated and was he unable to breathe.
At 8pm, the doctor told the commute, the condition of the celebrated Kiswahili writer further deteriorated, affecting his breathing system, but once again, the doctors managed to resuscitate him.
SUCCUMBED TO INJURIES
His condition worsened, and at 1:10am, Walibora succumbed to his injuries.
“On April 15, we fingerprinted him and identified him as Ken Walibora because some of the relatives could not confirm he was the one given the level of injuries,” Dr Kamuri said.
The committee opened an inquiry into the negligence claims after reports indicated that Walibora waited for 14 hours at the facility before he was attended to.
On that fateful day, the author is said to have driven from his Lavington home to Nairobi CBD before walking downtown.
He was later knocked down by a matatu on Landhies Road next to the entrance to Machakos bus station.
The writer was laid to rest at his Trans Nzoia home last week on Wednesday.
The ceremony was attended by only 15 people in line with the government’s directives to contain the spread of coronavirus.
His wife and two daughters did not make it due to the air travel ban across the globe due to Covid-19.