Baby loses arm in botched C-Section operation
JINJA- Authorities in Jinja District want the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC) to follow up events at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital after a baby lost a limb in a botched caesarean section that was allegedly performed by interns.
Sources said on Sunday that two senior doctors from Busoga Sub-region are investigating the issue and are on Monday expected to furnish UMDPC with their findings of the Friday incident.
The mother of the baby is said to have been admitted in the hospital for observation after developing complications but was later discharged by Dr Thomas Data, an intern.
She, however, later returned to hospital while bleeding and decided to be handled by Dr Mathias Ngobi, another intern doctor who, according to her judgement, was more active in the ward.
"The lady was 32/40 weeks of gestation and Dr Ngobi is said to have already done [assisted or himself done ] 40 C-section operation and was considered competent in this procedure," a medical doctor at the hospital, who declined to be named said.
With increased bleeding, Dr Ngobi, assisted by Dr Lovensa Nakabito, reportedly took the lady to the theatre, to remove the early intrauterine foetal death and stop the bleeding.
However, a source said when they opened her abdomen, there were lots of adhesion from the previous C-section scar and they found it difficult to navigate.
"The interns managed a small incision and with the heavy bleeding, they decided to pull out what they thought was a dead baby,” a source at the hospital said.
"In the process, they avulsed [detached] the right upper limb of the baby who weighed 1.1 kilogrammes. They only realised the baby was alive after several minutes of extra uterine line and were all very busy struggling to stop the bleeding and save the mother's life."
It is believed that the baby's father, who took the photo of the baby [with a missing arm], has since disappeared yet the Director of Jinja hospital, Dr Edward Nkurunziza, has requested that he gets him the photo for comparison.
Efforts to get a comment from Dr Nkurunziza and Dr Katumba Ssentongo [the registrar of UMDPC] were futile since they neither pick or nor return our calls.
