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Auxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
A BULAWAYO couple is blaming Mpilo Central Hospital doctors for negligence which resulted in the death of their three- week-old baby from complications arising from a fatal mistake by one of the medical personnel who attended to the baby.

When the inquest opened at Tredgold Magistrates’ Court last Friday, the coroner, Gladmore Mushove heard that Perez Simbarashe Murozvi died after a doctor allegedly forgot to remove an elastic band put on his arm precipitating an amputation. After the amputation the baby failed to get a transfusion on time, resulting in him losing a lot of blood leading to his death. The elastic band remained on the baby’s arm for more than 13 hours hours, resulting in it becoming gangrenous and therefore, a threat to his life.

Testifying during the inquest’s first day, the boy’s father Simbarashe Murozvi told the court that after the elastic error, medical personnel recommended the amputation of his son’s arm to save his life. “My son fell sick on 22 May last year and we took him to Mpilo Hospital. Upon getting to the hospital, he was treated and discharged. A day later, we took him back to hospital as there was no improvement in his condition and he was admitted,” said Murozvi.

He said the baby was moved to the Intensive Care Unit the following day.

“I met the doctors who told me that the child was dehydrated but was going to be well as his condition wasn’t that bad. They said he had to be put on drip. They also conducted a number of tests and they eventually told us that his kidneys were not functioning,” he added.

Murozvi, who is a police officer, said when his child was admitted to the institution he was crying, refusing to breastfeed and not urinating.

“When I went back to the hospital I was told that he was now urinating and we were elated that the condition of the child was improving,” he said.

He said when he visited the hospital on May 25, his wife came to him in a panic state saying “doctors have injured the child”.

“We rushed to the ICU to assess the condition of the child. His hand had turned black in colour and we asked doctors that were present to tell us what had happened to the child but none were forthcoming,” he said.

He said they approached a hospital official Martson Sithole who explained that one of the doctors forgot to remove an elastic band on the child’s arm in search of veins as he wanted to put a drip.

“Sithole explained that the condition of the child was that the blood cells on the arm were no longer functioning from where the elastic band was and the only solution was to have it amputated. In anger, I asked one doctor why the child had to be amputated when he had been admitted in a better condition,” said the visibly hurt father.

He said the Clinical Director, Dr Wedu Ndebele then called them to his office to explain why it was important to have the arm amputated.

Murozvi said Dr Ndebele told them that if the arm was not amputated the gangrene would move up and further affect the child’s lungs.

“We signed the papers for an amputation to be conducted on the same day but the operation was only done two days later on the 27th. After the operation he was taken back to ICU but it took him time to regain consciousness,” said Murozvi.

After the operation, the baby, who had lost a lot of blood, reportedly failed to get a transfusion on time and when he finally got blood, his body is said to have rejected it. “As blood was being transfused I noticed that some blood was oozing from his nose and mouth and the doctors said that he was bleeding from the lungs,” the father added.

He said they were summoned to the ICU the following day and were told that their son had died.

Mushove, the coroner, asked Murozvi on what he thought could have been the cause of death and he answered: “In my own opinion, negligence on the part of the doctors contributed to the death of my son because they left the elastic band on the child’s arm for a considerable time leading to its amputation and was also deprived of blood transfusion for a long time”. His wife echoed the same sentiments and added that she was still in pain over the loss of her child due to doctors’ negligence.

The inquest continues on February 5 when the boy’s maternal grandmother would testify together with the medical personnel who attended to the child.