Thursday, August 14,
2025 - Pumwani Maternity Hospital has been ordered to pay Ksh7.5 million in
compensation to a woman whose childbirth ordeal ended in the loss of her baby
and the non-consensual removal of her uterus.
In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, Justice Lawrence Mugambi
found that nurses and doctors acted with gross negligence during the woman’s
2019 delivery, delaying critical emergency treatment for over 11 hours despite
clear signs of distress.
The patient, identified as LL in court documents, left her
Nairobi slum home at 7am on October 19th, 2019, in severe pain.
At Pumwani, she was assured of immediate theatre admission.
Instead, she was repeatedly examined but left untreated
until 3pm, when her water broke - still with no intervention. She was finally
taken to the theatre at 9pm.
Her baby was stillborn. The next day, she was informed her
uterus had been removed-without her consent.
The court heard that staff placed both the deceased infant
and the excised organ in a basin under her bed.
Justice Mugambi ruled that the hospital’s conduct violated
her constitutional rights to the highest attainable standard of healthcare,
dignity, and freedom from psychological torture.
The court found the negligence caused permanent loss of
reproductive ability, severe emotional distress, and lasting stigma.
“A declaration is hereby issued that the mishandling and
deliberate neglect… violated Article 43(1)(a) of the Constitution,” the judge
stated.
The ruling has sparked outrage online, with other patients
sharing similar claims of negligence at Pumwani, a Nairobi County facility that
handles up to 100 normal births and 15 Caesarean deliveries daily.
The Kenyan DAILY POST
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