CAPTION: Nurse Caroline Mwenesi who cared for the late Baby Pendo at the Aga Khan Hospital in Kisumu: She died on Friday after undergoing a risky medical operation at the same facility The puzzling death of a nurse based at the Aga Khan hospital in Kisumu has sparked divided opinions on social media.
From a lengthy post circulating online, the facility's administration is accused of influencing the death of one of its workers, a healthcare provider by the name of Caroline Mwenesi, who died while undergoing a medical procedure.
Mwenesi who reportedly passed away on the eve of Friday 31st July 2021 was an experienced critical care nurse who had worked at the facility for over 10 years and famously provided care for late Baby Samantha Pendo during the 2019 post-election chaos in Kisumu. Due to constant heavy duties during her illustrious medical career, nurse Mwenesi is said to have gradually developed a back problem that prevented her from running her normal duties at the hospital.
As a result, a section of the Aga Khan Kisumu hierarchy including, CEO Jane Wanyama and the nursing director Elizabeth Kamau felt like Mwenesi was a weighty burden that needed to be offloaded.
They offered her an ultimatum to either resign or undergo surgery to fix her spine and resume full duties at the facility.
Now, this is where the story gets interesting...
According to the circulating Facebook post, one of the requirements before surgery was a Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on Mwenesi's spine.
But this was an idea she strongly refuted due to a past near-death experience with the MRI machine. "She tried pushing the MRI till last week when the nursing director told her if she doesn’t do the MRI she would be fired," reads the sad narration in part.
Being a widow with a family dependent on her, the nurse chose to swallow the bitter pill and proceed with the risky operation just to save her job.
On Friday, July 30, 2021, nurse Mwenesi, accompanied by her daughter, went for the MRI under sedation.
During the MRI, she suffered a cardiac arrest which even the medical director, an anaesthetist, could do nothing about.
Mwenesi was then rushed to the emergency room where she underwent an unsuccessful resuscitation under the watch of Nursing Director Kamau and CEO Wanyama who had forced her to go through with the risky surgery.
She was later transferred to the ICU where after a few hours, doctors pronounced her dead. Even as the Aga Khan Hospital Kisumu remains dead silent on the issue, family and colleagues of nurse Mwenesi continue to insist on foul play her death.
From a WhatsApp screenshot seen by nyakundireport.com , Mwenesi was categorical to everyone at the facility that she did not want to undergo MRI under sedation. Here is what some more Kenyans on social media had to say.