After a heartbreaking video of a woman giving birth as nurses sipped tea went viral, Police have move in and arrested the administrator at the troubled Shalom Community Hospital in Athi River.
Thomas Ndolo, the administrator, was arrested alongside a nurse identified as Edina Nyarangi following public outrage triggered by the viral video capturing the incident.
According to reports, Mr. Ndolo was taken in for alleged negligence at the facility, while the nurse is accused of operating without a license.
The man who recorded the incident said that the three nurses on duty refused to attend to the expectant woman despite being informed that her case was an emergency.
“So as I was seated waiting for my wife to be attended to, an older woman is rushed in on a wheelchair, there are three nurses on the table taking tea, they seem not to bothered about the woman despite being notified it’s an emergency case, so the woman pleads with one of them ‘haki nisaidie’ one of the nurses told her to get up and walk,” the man said.
He adds that he was forced to help the woman walk as she was visibly in pain and could not move.
“I helped her up with no aid from a nurse, we made about three or four steps mama akashout mtoto anaanguka then boom! Mtoto akaanguka kwa floor!” he explains.
The man says the nurses continued taking their tea but one male health officer rushed to pick the baby from the floor.
In the recording, the staffer is heard shouting at the nurses asking them why they failed to attend to the lady.
When asked what her name is, one of the nurses identifies herself as Edna but refuses to name her colleagues.
The facility’s administrator, who claims he was away on Easter when the incident happened, says the woman and her baby are fine.
The arrests come after officials from the Machakos County Government were dispatched to the facility Monday morning to seek more findings on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board and Nurses Union also made their way to the hospital to unravel the incident
The hospital’s administration has been given 30 days notice to comply with the required health standards, failure to which its license will be revoked.