Switched Surgery

The Following is from The Citizen Newspaper that I thought you would be interested in knowing

Yesterday we published a hair-raising report detailing a horrendous mix-up in which Muhimbili doctors have performed wrong surgical operations on two patients. In the bizarre mix-up,a 21-year old patient who had been admitted with a swollen knee,took head surgery meant for a student who underwent a simple knee operation instead.

After the wrong surgery,the youth fell into a coma and is now fighting for his life in the intensive care unit. Latest reports indicate that an inquiry has been instituted to carry out investigations in an administrative move to try to establish how the doctors or nurses might have swapped the patients and had them face the knife for ailments they were not suffering from.

What is shocking is that the hospital administration is treating the incident as normal and some doctors would frown when somebody dare ask them about the two young men. Indeed,there are a good number of unreported cases where patients after being operated on,were thereafter to be found with cotton swabs or other foreign objects forgotten in their abdomens.

The recent mix-up at our leading hospital is an incident to be treated with the utmost urgency it deserves and whoever was involved should be held responsible. If their explanation is insufficient let them bear the full brunt of the law. We should not at any stage,or for unknown reasons,condone such inefficiency in our hospitals.

We make this appeal not because we doubt the integrity of the health facility's leadership,but as a wake-up call to the powers that be,to remind them that something nasty has occurred or some medical personnel,for reasons known to themselves,may tarnish the image of the lead health facility in the country.

No one should be prepared to witness such an ugly event happen in the full view of wananchi.