A mother has sued St. Francis Hospital Nsambya over alleged professional negligence.
In a suit filed before the Civil Division of the High court in Kampala through her lawyers; Kirunda and Wasige Advocates, Rose Namara, contends that she was admitted to Nsambya hospital on April 12, 2018, with labour pains and the doctors advised her to undergo a caesarian section for the delivery of her baby girl.
She, however, notes that during the operation, she overheard the surgeons saying that they'd injured the baby. Namara explains that she was supposed to be discharged from the hospital four days after the operation, but she kept complaining of pain in her lower abdomen area even before being discharged.
She claims that doctors dismissed her complaints, telling her the pain was a result of the C-section and went ahead to discharge her.
Namara explains that a week after she returned to the hospital for review, the doctors found fluid in her tummy but didn't provide her with an explanation on the cause of the abscess.
Documents before court indicate that doctors recommended that Namara undergoes another urgent operation but no one attended to her since there was no doctor on the night shift despite the pain she was going through.
Namara explains that due to the unbearable pain, she asked for her medical file to relocate to another hospital for attention. She, however, says that the Nsambya medics declined to surrender her file.
Court records show that Namara's family decided to take her to Kampala Medical Chambers to attend to the infection urgently. She was admitted and operated on by Dr Romano Byaruhanga and spent two months in the hospital without any relief to her initial problem.
"The plaintiff's situation still did not improve because the infection remained and the C-section wound did not heal. The doctors then referred her to Kampala Imaging Centre for a full scan which revealed that a foreign object had been left inside the plaintiff during the C-section," reads the suit in part.
According to Namara, because of the growing medical bill, Dr Joseph Turyabahika, a senior surgeon at Kampala Medical Chambers advised her to return home and continue reporting for the dressing of her wound. She says that the doctors continued investigating the cause of the abscess, pus and fluid in her abdomen, which cost her huge sums of money since she visited different medical facilities for various types of scans.
She says that following numerous investigations by several professionals, it was discovered that the foreign object was the cause of her pain, and a third operation was done on November 13, 2019, which eventually cleared the infection.
Namara states that since then, her efforts to get pregnant have remained futile. Through her lawyers, Namara states that she has spent Shs 150 million on tests in various laboratories and treatment and wants the hospital to compensate her Shs 400 million in damages.
Court is yet to summon Nsambya hospital to file its defence to the suit. This is not the first time the hospital is being sued for alleged negligence. In November 2019, a female minor sued the hospital for negligently causing permanent blindness to her by failing to detect sight complications at the time of her birth.
She asked the court to order them to compensate her Shs 120 million. In July 2020, the hospital was under the spotlight again for detaining for 3 months a mother who had lost her baby over uncleared medical bills amounting to She 2.2 million.
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