MEDICS DIFFER IN FORMER JUJA MP'S DEATH CASE TESTIMONIES

John Waweru, the clinical officer who was the first person to attend to the former Juja MP George Thuo, yesterday while testifying in a case in which the proprietor of Klub Porkiez, Mr. Paul Wainaina alias Shekie is charged alongside Andrew Karanja Wainaina, Esther Ndinda Mulinge, Ruth Watahi Irungu and Christopher Lumbazio Andika, differed with the then Thika Nursing Home nurse Loice Njoki on the events of the evening the former MP was rushed to the hospital. 

 “We called a lab technician to carry out random blood sugar, which was okay. The pupils of the patient’s eyes were dilated as they were not reacting to light,” Waweru told the court. On further assessment with first aid given, he was not responding. After 30 minutes, somebody came in and introduced himself as one Dr Tim who claimed he was the family doctor. There was a lot of commotion of the people who came in and I could not hand over officially to Dr Tim,” Mr Waweru told the court.

 However, Ms Njoki, a nurse currently at Fatima Maternity Nursing Home in Rongai claimed that they used oxygen to try and resuscitate Thuo. 

“I assessed him, gave him oxygen, and checked his blood pressure. I cannot remember the faces of the two men who accompanied Thuo at the time of his death,” she testified.

 She added that it was the clinical officer’s decision to use oxygen to resuscitate the patient, which was the reason why they used oxygen to try and see whether they could resuscitate him. She said together with Waweru, they were on duty on November 17 , 2013 when Thuo was taken to the hospital. The doctor on call was one Dr Thuo. Njoki refuted claims that the clinical officer was under pressure from relatives and friends of Thuo but acknowledged that indeed Waweru differed with Thuo’s personal doctor. Njoki said when Dr Tim arrived, he said he could feel a pulse and he asked for the patient to be given oxygen although they had put him on some before he (Tim) arrived.
  
“He came and said he was the personal doctor. So we kept off, which I admit, was unethical as the clinical officer did not handover officially,” she said. She told Judge Roselyn Korir that there was no cardiac activity, the pupils were dilated, which could mean Thuo was brain dead. 

Defence lawyers John Khaminwa and Cliff Ombeta sought to know from Waweru why he concluded Thuo had died yet upon arrival of his personal doctor, he was still breathing.

Waweru said he was not in a position to tell the cause of death at that time, adding that they did not use oxygen to resuscitate him. He was also taken to task as to why he never included in his conclusion in the medical report that the patient had died. 

 Njoki told the court that it was the duty of the clinical officer to call the doctor on duty. She denied being negligent. A medical card which was used to book Thuo into the nursing home, and produced in court was also a subject of heated debate as the defence lawyers claimed that it lacked an official rubber stamp and the name and signature of the doctor who attended to him. 

Justice Korir sought to know why Waweru never informed the relatives that the patient had died to which he said he was under pressure, something which Njoki said he was not.

(Source: The Standard Media)