The debate surrounding the passing of infant Travis Maina has changed.
The two-year-old, who had a fork jembe lodged in his brain, may have been a victim of a conflict involving his parents, according to a report from Kenyatta National Hospital on Tuesday.
Evanson Kamuri, the CEO of KNH, testified before the Senate Health Committee that Judy Muthoni, the mother, wept after learning of her son’s murder and claimed the husband had pointed the jembe at her.
“It is something that should be investigated more by another body. When we broke the news of the death of the baby, the mother started to shout in distress about how the husband had killed her baby,” he said.
The CEO said doctors who attended to Maina doubted whether the boy sustained the injury while playing with others.
“It was a severe injury that could not have been inflicted by other children while playing. That woman needs to come out clear on what exactly happened. We are very sorry for what happened but we have also been asking ourselves what happened,” he told the committee.
The senate team was led by committee chairperson Jackson Mandago and the hospital was represented by Kamuri, KNH board chairperson George Ooko and a team of surgeons.
Kamuri said the woman was not sincere about the time the injury occurred.
“When we took the baby to the theatre, we realised that the jembe had been lodged in the head for much longer than what the woman said. We could tell this from the amount of pus that had accumulated at the wound,” he said.
He said Muthoni first took her son to a pharmacy, where she was advised to rush to the hospital.
The CEO further accused Muthoni of lying about being asked to pay Sh20,000 before the baby could be attended to.
He said Muthoni was only told how much she would need to have, as it is usually the case when someone is processing admission.
“We do not ask for money especially for emergency cases because we look at their survival. Most of my clients do not pay, and won’t pay even after treatment. There is some Sh7 billion which has not been paid to the hospital as of now,” Kamuri said.
He said payment is normally made after a patient is discharged or dies.
“This was a high level of dishonesty,” the CEO said.
Mandago assured the hospital that they will counter-check the claims of the hospital and those of the woman before they come to any conclusion.
“If there were any lapses please share them with us. They will inform our recommendations,” the Uasin Gishu Senator said.
Kamuri said doctors could not have immediately rushed the boy to the theatre because he had lost too much blood.
“We first needed to give him blood. And being a baby, that process is much slower because if we could have given him too much blood at once, there was a risk of cardiac arrest,” he said.
He said doctors also had to stabilise the patient first before operating on him.
“We could only take the baby to the theatre when we were comfortable with his situation,” he stated.
He said claims that the mother was kept waiting before doctors attended to the baby were misleading.
“We have CCTV cameras. You can have a look at them and see exactly what happened from the time the baby arrived at the hospital,” he said.
Senators will visit Kenyatta National Hospital as the inquest into the death of baby Travis Maina continues.
The committee is expected to meet Kamuri to deliberate on the circumstances that led to the death of Travis.
The committee has been conducting investigations to dig into circumstances under which the two-year-old died after a fork jembe got stuck in his skull in early October.
The mother’s sister, Lucy Wambui earlier on told the committee the child was taken to Thika Level 5 Hospital at 4 pm on that day.
He was then taken for a scan to ascertain the extent of the injury before the doctors called Kenyatta National Hospital to refer the case.
They were given an ambulance which rushed them to KNH at 6 pm.
They were then made to pay Sh1,260 before the doctor who attended to them asked them to pay an additional Sh20,500, an amount they didn’t have.
The doctor, however, signed the admission forms after Wambui showed him a photo of the child and the condition he was in.
“We sat there until 10 pm that is when the doctor came and took photos and told us they have to discuss among themselves. He came back again at 8 am,” Wambui told the committee.
