The Minister of Health Dr Agnes Binagwaho has rubbished claims that doctor s intentionally or unintentionally left medical kits inside Zawade Murekatete’s uterus.
The minister said a report has been compiled from the findings of the team of doctors who has carried on the investigation.
“What the media has reported of all those claims of Murekatete that doctors left those kits inside her, It is not true, and we have a prove of that by several examinations done that her uterus was empty,” Binagwaho said declining to avail the compiled findings in the report.
“What is in report has been said by different doctors, there is no need to avail the report, but to who is responsible to put those kits inside her the police is still investigating,” Binagwaho added.
“Investigations indicate that those kits we put inside the patient’s vagina and so it was very near. It was not done by a normal doctor; it could have been done by anyone who can even buy those kits from anywhere,”
Reports have indicated that a syringe is missing and yet it would be used to identify who could have used it or may have picked it from the store or assigned to.
Speaking to Igihe.com, the chairman of Rwanda Medical Council Innocent Gakwaya said that the kits were taken away like any other rubbishes dropped away.
“They were all taken away, but we have shown that there is no responsibility of a doctor whatsoever, I have been a surgeon for 25 years, it is not possible that a trained doctor can do such a thing,” Dr Gakwaya said.
“First of all in an operation a doctor is not one. He/She must be with others helping so I don’t see how a doctor can decide to leave such kits when others looks on. Secondly let say removing a glove, it means one has finished the operation and therefore undressing what he/she was using in the operating theater,” Dr Gakwaya added.
“It is just can’t be possible. May be a cotton or thread for longer time it is possible and it is not only in Rwanda, anywhere in the world these simple mistakes can happen because doctors are also human being but such bigger things and many of such, it is not possible at all,”
So the remaining mystery of who could have been responsible to put those kits inside that patient’s vagina, police will investigate.
When we contacted Police spokesperson Supt. Theos Badege, told Igihe.com that the investigations were still underway.
Genesis
On the morning of April 1, 2008 a Congolese refugee at Gihembe Refugee Camp, went into labour and had to undergo cesarean operation as she was giving birth.
Zawadi Murekatete, 20, was rushed to the camp’s health centre but was immediately transferred to Byumba District Hospital since she had to undergo cesarean which the camp health centre could not perform.
Murekatete said that she underwent operation and gave birth to a healthy baby but doctors instructed her not to move until when she was told to do so.
She said that when she left the theatre, her stomach started swelling immediately, and feeling a lot of pain.
The following day as she went to the toilet, the stitches went loose and her stomach slit open, blood, puss and some liquid started flowing out of her.
She was rushed to the theatre where she was re-stitched but her stomach kept swelling and she had to undergo another operation on April 5, 2008.
She claims that she was discharged but kept seeing puss in her urine. She again consulted the doctors at the camp’s health centre who referred her back to Byumba District Hospital where she had been operated.
Murekatete also claims that an unidentified doctor referred her to a psychiatrist saying that she was suffering from trauma and decided to go back to the camp where she remained under the care of medics of the camp’s health centre.
Murekatete lived with pain for three years until January 5, 2012, when a piece of cotton dropped out of her as she was urinating.
Due to the bad health situation, camp doctors decided to transfer her to Kigali Teaching Hospital (CHUK) without authorization from Byumba District Hospital where the whole of this saga begun to be unearthed.
Murekatete and her mother claim that the three gloves, a syringe and cotton were intentionally left in her uterus by doctors from Byumba hospital.
Current observations have indicated that it is medically impossible for an individual to be inhabited by external agents within the uterus for such a long period of time.
Doctors have said that as far as human anatomy is concerned, it is impossible to habit these materials for that long and besides even if they had been left within the uterus it is unconceivable how they might have travelled to the vagina from where they were disposed off.
They say the canal from the vagina to the uterus (cervix) is such a small slit through which only micro materials can maneuver not such complex material as gloves and syringes.
ENDS
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