Hospital under probe over claims of rat eating corpse

Police are investigating Kawempe National Referral Hospital after a couple questioned the circumstances of the death of their new-born whose face a doctor at the facility reportedly said was partially “eaten” by a rat.
The parents, 20-year-old Yvonne Ainembabazi and her husband Sulaiman Waiswa, 30, claim their first baby was likely a victim of ritual sacrifice and a deep wound on the left side of the face was inconsistent with rat bites. 
They told the law enforcement agency that unnamed health workers at the hospital upon their arrival on July 20 attempted to refer them “elsewhere”, claiming that their child required unspecified external services, but they objected.

The aggrieved and grieving family and Kawempe Hospital separately confirmed that the baby boy was delivered normally at eight-and-a-half months at Lwanyanga, a private clinic in Kampala’s Rubaga Division, but referred for care in a nursery.
Police, quoting accounts offered by the parents, said the infant was on the third day of admission placed on oxygen without a notification or explanation to them, a decision followed by concealment of subsequent information on the baby’s final moments. 
At around 9:30pm on the same day, the child was pronounced dead and the body reportedly moved to the morgue.

Mr Fred Mutebi, a grandfather to the deceased, said a doctor, whose named we are withholding for legal reasons, that evening blocked the parents without explanation from seeing the body of their dead baby --- both at the nursery and in the mortuary.  
When the couple and relatives arrived the next morning to collect the body, they noticed a strange deep wound on the face and the same doctor told them, “you did bad to leave the dead [body] without a coffin. The rats have eaten the baby’s forehead”. 
“We asked them what they were doing on the head [of the dead child] and can the rat surely eat like this? They started telling us to forgive them,” Mr Mutebi said, “We want to know what happened to the body of the baby and why they opened the head. The rat cannot open the forehead …”

Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesman Patrick Onyango yesterday said that the parents cited these series of “suspicious” events to lodge a complaint for formal inquiries into the cause of the demise of their baby and the alleged incision.   
“We have opened up a death inquiry file to investigate [the] circumstances under which a premature baby died. We are also investigating circumstances under which the rat gained access to where the bodies are kept. We need to confirm all that,” he said.
That inquiry commenced yesterday with police moving the body of the child to Kampala Capital City Mortuary in Mulago for autopsy.

‘‘Corpse swap’’
Samples have also been extracted from Ms Ainembabazi for a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test to ascertain if she is the biological mother of the deceased or whether her child had been swapped for a corpse.
It remained unclear when both results would be out.
Dr Emmanuel Byaruhanga, the executive director of Kawempe National Referral Hospital, on Monday asked us to withhold publication of the story to give him opportunity yesterday to explain in detail what transpired.

He was, however, reported to be in meetings when our journalists turned up to speak to him and after a six-hour wait at the hospital, Dr Byaruhanga sent his deputy, Dr Lawrence Kazibwe, to refer the Reporters to police.
Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesman, Mr Onyango, said detectives had taken statements from staff on duty at the nursery section of Kawempe Hospital on the fateful days as well as the mortuary attendant.

“They were cooperative,” he said, without disclosing their accounts to investigators and whether more officials of the hospital are lined up to assist with the investigations.
A pathologist reached out by this newspaper for explanation said a rat bite - referred to in their parlance as “post-mortem injury” - is possible since some morgues in the country are dilapidated and rat-infested yet corpses are sometimes left on the floor rather than stored in fridges.
The forensic doctor, however, noted that this possibility should not foreclose other lines of inquiry to establish the facts regarding the child’s death.

Dr Herbert Luswata, the president of Uganda Medical Association who previously worked at Kawempe National Referral Hospital, described the reported incident as “unfortunate” and asked the hospital administration for full disclosure.
“I don’t think the rats can access the dead bodies that are kept in a fridge in a mortuary [because] bodies taken to the mortuary are treated and don’t smell,” he said, adding, “If there is something else that happed to the body of this child, parents deserve to know.”
 The body looked yellow, the relatives said.

A medical certificate of cause of death from the hospital dated July 23 and signed by a one Dr Kizza, shows the baby succumbed to cardiopulmonary arrest (the heart and lungs stopped working), congenital heart disease (birth heart defect), hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (severe deprivation of the brain of oxygen or blood) and neo-natal meningitis. 
It is unclear whether the hospital conducted an autopsy on the body of the baby or if the conclusions are drawn from clinical notes.

Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, said he was aware of the claims and ongoing police inquiries will establish the facts.
“Investigations are going on and we shall comment once they (investigations) are concluded,” he said.
He asked the hospital management to inform the parents of the deceased if doctors there opened the skull of the dead baby during a post-mortem.
Elsewhere, the regulator of doctors and dentists operating in the country opened its door to the aggrieved parents if they want to lodge a case for inquiry into any alleged professional lapses or misconduct. 

Possible negligence
Prof Joel Okullo, the chairperson of Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council, said they had not been petitioned to intervene, but would readily do so if formally asked.
“When it [allegation] comes to our attention, we shall investigate,” he said, identifying negligence or mismanagement of a patient as likely lines of inquiry.
He said the complainant and the defendant would be summoned to present their cases upon which the Council would adjudicate on the matter. 

If found guilty, Prof Okullo said sanctions in the rule book against health workers include a “reprimand, suspension of the health worker and erasure of his or her particulars from the registry,” which would render them unable to practice in Uganda.Investigations.