[All Africa] Kenyatta National Hospital chief executive and her deputy, the Director of Clinical Services, were sent on compulsory leave to allow investigations into a surgery mix up.Health CS Sicily Kariuki made the announcement to send home Ms Lily Koros and her deputy, Dr Bernard Githae, on Friday following public uproar raised by the surgery saga broken by the Nation.
On Thursday evening, Ms Koros had suspended four medical staff, including a neurosurgeon, who performed a head surgery on a wrong patient.
Certainly looked like the right fellow, but you know what they say.
Speaking at the referral facility on Friday evening, Ms Kariuki said that the compulsory leave was meant to pave way for further investigations on how the error occurred.
'Medical Malpractice'
"The information so far available to me points to a possible case of serious medical malpractice or a medical error due to non-adherence to patient safety protocols at this hospital, an equally serious matter," said Ms Kariuki while announcing the dismissal of the two officials.
After further consultation with a source privy to the matter, the Nation can exclusively report that it is believed the error emanated from tagging of patients as names of the two, who were coincidentally unconscious at the time of admission and operation, are identical.
"That such an incident can occur at our biggest referral and teaching hospital is totally unacceptable especially coming soon after other reported cases touching on patient safety in the last one month," added Ms Kariuki.
She went ahead to ask the management board to conduct investigations and table a report before the end of next week.
"I have also asked them bring in external auditors to audit patient safety and report back with their findings. It is not going to be business as usual," she said.