A family has accused two hospitals in Mombasa of negligence leading to the death of their kin.
The Coast General Provincial and Premier Hospital, a private facility, could not attend to Richard Shisia, causing his demise.
According to Shisia’s wife Esther Amunga, her late husband Richard Shisia fell critically ill last Wednesday at around 11pm and died seven hours later at CGPH.
He had initially been rushed to Premier Private Hospital by his family and workmates.
He was placed on oxygen machine and the doctors said he needed emergency care.
The hospital reportedly demanded Sh150,000 deposit before any treatment though only Sh70,000 could be raised, Premier remained adamant and Shisia had to be referred to CPGH.
According to Mrs. Amunga Premier Hospital denied them treatment because they did not have the total required amount of money and they had to seek help at Coast General Hospital where her husband died on a wheel chair because there was no doctor to attend him.
The deceased wife says her husband was left unattended from midnight Wednesday and died on Thursday morning at the corridors of Coast General Hospital.
Speaking at Coast General hospital where he had gone to collect the remains of his deceased brother, Kevin Chimoi accused the two hospitals of negligence and called upon the government through Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki to probe the two health hospitals for the negligence which led to the death of his brother.
Reuben Murage, Shisia’s workmate said that At CPGH, only one nurse was on duty and did not attend to Shisia immediately.
In fact, Murage noted Shisia was benched on a broken wheelchair.
He said it took two hours of push and pull before the nurse took blood samples for test, still no other medical care was given to the deceased and Shisia died at 6:30 am at the same wheelchair.
The family and workmates demanded in vain to get the doctor’s report.
Human rights activist have thrown weight on the matter and are now calling on the government to probe the two hospitals and deregister the private hospital for refusing a patient treatment because of lack of full payment of admission fee.
He said this will deliver justice to Shisia’s family.
On his part, Executive director of Genesis for Human Rights Commission Julius Ogogo called upon the Parliamentary committee on health to probe the Coast General Hospital staff for not attending a patient for almost six hours.
Ogogo, said at Coast General Hospital the doctor who was supposed to be on night duty to handle patients was absent only to report the following day at 10:00 Am in the morning.
