Being in critical care in the hospital should sometimes be guarded by policemen, especially if you have been hospitalized over certain circumstances like attempted suicide, armed robbery among others. The reason why I say this is because, there is a likeliness of the incident reoccurring even when hospitalised, unless otherwise. For Instance, a person who nearly committed suicide is likely to find any alternative to end their life either way. Regardless of whether they are hospitalized or not. Well, don’t you think so? The High Court has freed a suspect who was accused of killing a patient in Nyeri Referral Hospital eleven years ago.
Mr Francis Mbuga Weru, a matatu driver was acquitted of the murder charge by Justice Jairus Ngaah for lack of enough evidence. The police had charged Mr Weru alongside several other suspects with the killing a patient David Maina Wangeci on December 1, 2008. Wangeci was in an ICU ward following an attack by gunmen at his home in Mweiga in Kieni Constituency. The assailants also slashed him with a machete. How the daring gunmen accessed the hospital’s ICU, which is under 24-hour surveillance, fired gunshots and left without being noticed, remains a puzzle to date.
Two nurses, Ms Virginia Wanjugu Thuita and Ms Judy Wanjiku Karori, were on duty in the ward which Wangechi had been admitted. Ms Thuita told the court she was in the resting room next to the ICU with her colleagues when a man, whom she described as “not tall”, stormed in and ordered her out. She made as if to approach him but he whipped out a gun from his jacket and pointed it at the nurses, motioning them to keep quiet. They obliged. Meanwhile, there was a commotion in the ICU ward. The nurses heard the patient scream but suddenly he went silent.
He had been in the hospital ward for two days when on December 1, at about 8:00-8:30pm armed thugs stormed the ICU and shot and slashed him again. After the attack he was transferred to Mt Kenya Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries about three days later. The gunman left and when the nurses went to the ICU ward, they found Wangechi bleeding. He was transferred to Mt Kenya Hospital where he died several days later. The second nurse, Ms Karori, told the court the man who stormed their resting room left the ward after Wangechi went silent. Police arrived almost immediately because they had been alerted of the incident by the maternity wing of the hospital. Unlike Ms Thuita, Ms Karori could not recall whether the man was tall or short.
Wangeci’s brother, Mr Peter Mwangi said on November 27, 2008, he received a call from his mother asking him to visit the deceased at the hospital. His mother had been called on her phone and informed by a stranger that her son had been attacked in Mweiga and hospitalised. They went to the hospital together, where they found him in the ICU ward. Mr Mwangi said his brother told him he had been kidnapped from his home by people who later shot and slashed him.They abandoned him at Mweiga and Good Samaritans took him to hospital. Mr Mwangi said the following day they heard from the radio that he had been attacked again.
Dr Gor Gudi produced a post-mortem report on behalf of Dr Dindi, who examined the Wangeci’s body and came to the conclusion that the deceased died of “cardiorespiratory arrest following complications secondary to gunshot wounds.” After the attack, police arrested and charged Mr Weru with Wangeci’s murder. Mr Weru was a patient in hospital but he was admitted a day after the shooting incident. Mr Mwangi testified that his late brother knew the murder suspect “very well.”