Mulago hospital on the spot as mother sues over missing baby

On December 26, 2015, Ms Fatuma Nakayima, a resident of Kyebando who works in Kalerwe market in Kampala, booked into Mulago hospital after experiencing labour pains.
Hours into the night, a doctor examined her and ensured her that she would give birth normally. She was in the company of her sister Naluwooza, who has hearing and speech impairments, who she says was ordered out of the labour ward the following morning as the normal practice is regarding caregivers.
Things took a bad turn at about 10am that morning, she says, when on the second examination doctors told her she had a raptured uterus and that she required to undergo an emergency caesarean section.
Even as she was given this bad news, she says, “I still felt my baby in the stomach making some movements”.
The medical operation then started, she was given anesthesia and passed out.

“When I regained consciousness after the operation, I immediately asked them where my baby was and I was told it had died,” Ms Nakayima says as she struggles to hold back tears.
As she was moved from the labour ward and to the high dependence unit, the health worker who was around her advised her against crying to avoid stretching the stitches.
When Ms Nakayima’s caregiver came around to deliver her beddings, she says, the caregivers took the items from her and prevented her from entering.
At around 5pm that day, she says, a nurse asked her for her husband’s phone number and left the room to speak with him. The husband, Mr Ramathan Lukanga, would learn from the health worker that his wife had delivered a baby by caesarian, but that the baby had died.

Body missing in mortuary
The next day, December 18, 2015, Ms Nakayima says, her husband arrived at Mulago hospital and went straight to the mortuary to search for the body of the dead baby boy.
“On arrival he asked the mortuary attendants for Fatumah Nakayima or the body of a 3.5kg boy which had been brought but he was told they had not received any of the two,” Ms Nakayima says.
The mortuary attendants advised Mr Lukanga to bring the health worker who had reported the death to him, Ms Nakayima says, prompting the husband to call Ms Nakayima and share what he had been told.
As Ms Nakayima left the ward to meet her husband, she says, the female health worker who had told her not to cry while still in the labour ward and the same one who had called her husband also showed up.

Having introduced the two, Ms Nakayima says, she went back to her bed as the duo proceeded to the mortuary to search for the body.
“They checked for my name in the book from the mortuary and it was missing but when they checked the book from the ward, my name was in,” Ms Nakayima says.
A disappointed Mr Lukanga had to leave without the body, Ms Nakayima says, and went back to his village in Busiika on Gayaza Road where a grave had already been dug for the “dead baby”.
Ms Nakayima says after her husband left the female health worker turned at her with a confusing message: “You are going to have me arrested and my family will have nothing to eat.”

She says when she asked her for the whereabouts of her baby, the health worker “just walked out of my sight”.

That very day, Ms Nakayima’s mother, Ms Justine Nakasinde, reported a case of child stealing to Mulago Police Station and some three police officers, two male and one female officer, were sent in to help with the investigations.
But Ms Nakasinde, Ms Nakayima says, was denied the reference number for the case she had just reported, exciting suspicion.
On December 29, 2015, Ms Nakayima says she was transferred to grade Ward 5B, where the police officers still followed her asking her to make more statements.
“I was tired and disgusted of making statements and I told them I was not ready to make any other and so they left and never came back,” Ms Nakayima says.

As the police officers left, she says the police officers exchanged phone contacts saying she would contact them for updates on the investigations. The phone numbers, which Ms Nakayima shared with us, were not reachable on numerous occasions.
Ms Nakayima left hospital on January 2, 2016 without her child or his body.
“I know my child was just sold alive. I did not get any chance to see him; I was only shown in the file that I had given birth to a baby boy weighing 3.5kgs,” Ms Nakayima says as she sobs.
She continues: “It really hurts me and quite often I break down and cry alone because I always imagine what he would be doing at the time. I want my baby back; I want my baby.”

Appealing to the law
“I don’t want to comment on the case you are following because I was not here by then,” Mr Karim Majid, the officer in-charge Mulago Police Station, said when asked about the matter.
He advised us to follow up the matter with Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson Emilian Kayima, who he said would link us up with Wandegeya police station under which Mulago police station falls. Several attempts to solicit a comment from Wandegeya Police Station were futile.

With the police route not bearing fruit, Ms Nakayima contacted FIDA, The Association of Women Lawyers, for help. FIDA in turn referred her to the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD).
“She asked us to help her with legal counsel on how she can proceed. And she mostly wanted her child. She feels her child was stolen because the hospital can neither avail her child nor the dead body,” Ms Specioza Avako, CEHURD’s officer in charge of strategic litigation, programme says.
On December 15, 2016, Ms Nakayima and CEHURD sued the Executive Director of Mulago hospital and the Attorney General seeking for orders that the hospital to surrender her baby dead or alive.

Ms Nakayima is also seeking a declaration that failure to give information on the whereabouts of her child subjects her to psychological torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
She further seeks compensation for damages resulting from the violation of her human rights and those of her child.
The organisation says, acting on Ms Nakayima’s behalf, they asked for the whereabouts of the child from Mulago hospital, they were not accorded any assistance, prompting the law suit.
Earlier this year, Ms Avako says, the organisation attempted to mediate between the parties but that no official from Mulago hospital and the Attorney General’s office honoured the appointment.

Not the first time
“You will give me the discharge form and give me time to check the records,” Dr B.B Baterana, the director of Mulago hospital, said when Daily Monitor contacted him over the matter. We emailed him a scanned copy of the discharge form.
When contacted over the same about a week, however, Dr Baterana said he was not in office, before requiring that we first write to him officially detailing what information we needed.
We then turned to Mr Enock Kusasira, the hospital’s spokesperson.
“Once a matter is being handled in court it is not proper for any of us; myself and my executive director again to throw comments on it,” Mr Kusasira said.

On skipping the mediation meeting arranged by CEHURD, however, Mr Kusasira said: “I have no clear record of what could have happened, why the meeting did not take place but I am very sure it was not intentional. It could have been clash of programms on either side.”
This is not the first time Mulago hospital is sued over a baby. In 2014, a couple sued the hospital seeking compensation for loss of one of their twin babies in 2012.

Mr Michael Mubangizi and his wife Jennifer Munsimenta sued then claimed that one of their babies mysteriously went missing shortly after birth. In January this year, the High Court in Kampala fined Mulago hospital Shs 85m as general damages to the couple.
Justice Lydia Mugambe ruled that the baby got lost due to the negligence of Ms Mariam Mundida, the mid-wife on duty that day.
She justified the Shs 85 million awarded to the couple on grounds that they suffered psychological torture of not knowing or burying their own baby, which is a cherished ritual in African culture.
Also in her judgment, the judge took note of the psychological torture the couple goes through on a daily basis when people continuously ask them where the other twin baby is.
In 2006, the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council was moved to investigate alleged professional misconduct by a doctor in relation to the loss of a baby at Mulago hospital.
Mr Farouk Bukenya complained that on the July 12, 2006, at about 12:30 pm, his wife Sauda Nabakiibi went into labour and was immediately taken to Mualgo hospital for delivery.

The following day at about 11 am, Mr Bukenya said, he was informed that his wife was to undergo an operation and she was immediately sent to the operating theater. After delivery by caesarean section, he said, the baby and two others were received, recorded and taken to the ward office by an unidentified nurse.
The mother asked to see her baby at 4pm that day, Mr Bukenya said, but that the baby had not been brought to her an hour later. The baby was never found.
After investigating the matter, the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Council concluded that it was clear that the disappearance of Ms Nabakiibi’s baby was “a well-planned evil act by a group of medical personnel of Mulago hospital”.
The doctor in question had admitted to the council that he wrote two theatre reports, with the first indicating that the baby was male and the second indicating that the baby was female. He named a senior nursing officer who he claimed had convinced him to change the record and indicate that the baby was a girl.

The doctor was found guilty of gross professional misconduct and barred from carrying out any form of medical practice in Uganda for a period of two calendar years from the date of the decision.
About Mulago hospital, the Council established that there was poor customer care and that there was poor communication between the hospital staff and the consumers of their service.
Ms Nakayima has since been told many such stories and her confidence that her baby did not die but was just stolen is unshakable. The case in the High Court is scheduled to be heard today.