'My wife bled from 6.45am to noon without help,' husband recounts losing spouse to medical negligence

Omondi, who testified before the Senate Committee on Health on Tuesday, says his wife, who had just delivered twins was placed on the same bed with her two newborns. He recalled that one of the twins was squeezed against the wall as the bed was seriously cramped.

Maureen Onyango died at the Kiambu Level 5 hospital on September 6 after developing post-delivery complications.

He told the Senate Health Committee that he first realised something was wrong when he noticed his wife, who had delivered via Caesarean section, was bleeding.

"I realised my wife was bleeding after the CS & a nurse I alerted ignored me," Omondi told the committee on Tuesday.

To stop the heavy bleeding, Omondi told the committee that he alternated between attending to his newborns who were not breastfeeding and placing cotton wool on his wife's privates to stop the bleeding.

 "She bled from 6:45am all the way to noon," he added.

"For all those hours I was placing cotton in my wife’s private parts the cotton was completely drenched in blood. There was no one to give us another, leave alone assist us," he said.

According to Omondi, who sells eggs and smokies to support his family, when help did arrive, it was not the kind he expected.

He claims that two nurses arrived after several hours and took the two babies to the wards, informing him that his wife was experiencing excessive bleeding and would require a referral to a different facility.

He was also told he would need Ksh.200,000 for the emergency referral, but even so, he had to wait for two hours for the ambulance, since there was no driver available.

Mr Omondi claims that when the ambulance arrived, the driver wasted a lot of time asking other drivers for directions to Kiambu.

"The ambulance driver kept on asking other motorists for directions to Kiambu. We wasted a lot of time as the driver told me ‘sijazoea hii route’," Omondi said.

"We finally reached Kiambu hospital 1am."

The father of two said that his request for a discharge summary from Mama Lucy hospital was initially turned down. 

Meanwhile, at the Kiambu Level Hospital, his wife was wheeled into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), as staffers asked him to leave and return the next morning. 

Omondi, who says he camped at a tent in the hospital till daybreak, says he was informed at around 7am that his wife had died. 

He remembers the last words from his wife. She asked him to give their children milk. 

"The last thing my wife told me was to give my kids milk," he said. 

Rose Otieno, the late Maureen Onyango's sister, also testified before the Senate Health Committee, blaming the hospital for negligence.

Ms Otieno stated that the initial scan revealed that her sister was expecting twins, a boy and a girl. She thinks it's strange that her late sister gave birth to two boys.

"My sister died as a result of negligence," Rose Otieno told the Senate Committee

"I’ve never slept since my sister Maureen passed away. It’s been very tough."