By Philip Ocheche
A family in Mukuru Kwa Njenga slums in Nairobi is crying for justice after their daughter “lost one of her kidneys” after visiting hospital for check-up over a stomach upset.
Ivine Kinagu, 22, discovered that one of her kidney was missing after a second visit to Mbagathi Hospital.
In 2019, Ivine went to Mbagathi hospital with a stomach pain.
“I was admitted with a stomach problem and the doctor told me that I needed surgery,” Ivine said.
The operation was done and the doctors in the hospital never mentioned kidney removal to Ivine’s parents.
A few months later, she started having stomach pains and went back to Mbagathi Hospital, did another scan and that was when she was told that one of her kidney was missing
The doctors again advised her to go for another test to confirm if indeed one of her kidney was actually missing.
“I went to Mama Lucy Hospital and indeed I was having one kidney,” Ivine said.
She first reported the case to Catholic Priest in her church in Mukuru kwa Njenga and the Catholic lawyers wrote to the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board about the case.
According to The Standard newspaper that first featured her first story, a file containing the first scan that was done before the operation indicated that both of her kidneys were normal.
“Someone in the hospital must have removed Ivine’s kidney without informing us,” Ivine’s mother Jerusa Kageha said.
The Standard reporter reached out to Dr. Richard Tinega who said that there was no possibility that Ivine’s Kidney was removed at the hospital.
Dr Ahmed Twahir, who is a nephrologist and chairman of the Kenya Renal Association, said chance of Ivine’s kidney being stolen in the hospital for commercial purposes was not possible.
“Kenya has very few specialists who can successfully remove a kidney, preserve it and transport it for use on other patients,” Dr Ahmed said.
He said the worst of it could have happened and advised the patient to file for negligence case against the hospital. He said the patient should fill a form with the medical board to query the events that happened before and after the surgery.
“There is no possibility that my niece could have been born with one kidney because none of the many doctors we encountered before and after the operation mentioned it,” says Leah Muhonja, Ivine’s aunt.
