By Lydia Igwee
Kampala. Two weeks after she had a set of twins through a caesarian section birth conducted at Mengo hospital, Bagategye Shamurah is not only experiencing extreme pain but also incurring a lot of expenses fixing a mess that she claims was made by a doctor at Mengo hospital when he negligently handled her.
The new mother of twins who first released her ordeal via social media says she has had to do another operation to close her wound that wasn’t properly closed after the operation making her incision area start oozing with pus and foul smell.
She says despite paying Shs2.1million shillings for the Mengo operation, she has had to pay Shs2.3million at another hospital she couldn’t disclose for another operation in addition to incurring huge daily expenses that could go on for months. She blames Mengo for not only being unprofessional at the time of the C- section but also watching her rot despite alerting them about every sign she experienced.
She says they have now resorted to threatening her to stay quiet.
Shamurah’s first operation was conducted on February 14th and discharged from hospital three days later. She says since then she has had cocktails of painkillers that they could no longer help with the untold pain she was experiencing. She says the doctor that did her second operation intimated that the new operation found her messy and that he couldn’t guarantee how long it will take her to fully recover.
Dennis Bwanika, Mengo hospital’s Public Relations Officer told URN on Monday that the new mother’s allegations are baseless saying they have conducted an internal investigation following her complaint which show she left the hospital in good shape three days after the operation.
Without revealing details of what they have found, Bwanika said in case she needs an explanation the hospital is ready to take her through what they have found privately in respect of the medical code of conduct.
But, Shamurah says her complications started when the doctor removed the plaster from the incision area on the day of discharge when it still looked fresh and the doctor said all will be well after recommending that she buys drugs that would help with the wound.
It kept deteriorating until she had to go back to hospital in pain, only for her to be traumatized the more, she says.
She says she would give the doctor video feedback showing them how the wound was but they still told her to stay home until she rejected their advice.
When her ordeal was put to Dr. Katumba Ssentongo, the Registrar of Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC) that regulates hospital operations and handles such cases, he said the council cannot get involved in a case in which they haven’t been formerly petitioned.
Katumba told URN on Monday that they are now reviewing the rules according to which they so it can be amended to give them powers to investigate such cases even when no one has involved them.
He notes though that of all the cases that have been reported to them child birth related complaints top the table.
However, Shamurah was non committal on whether or not she will seek legal redress but says she shared her story to alert fellow women to be keen when choosing a hospital or health workers to trust with their life.
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