She disappeared over the weekend from the Mbagathi District Hospital/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 10 – A patient who went missing from the Mbagathi District Hospital three days ago has been found.
Josephine Sakuda was tracked down to the Kenyatta National hospital where she was taken by a good Samaritan who spotted her on the streets.
The disoriented Sakuda was put under observation while shackled to a bed as efforts were made to inform her relatives of her whereabouts.
She disappeared over the weekend from the Mbagathi District Hospital where she had been admitted after being diagnosed with meningitis.
“We are wondering how the administration of this (Mbagathi) hospital can let this happen. They should rectify the situation since it is very serious and it caused us a great deal of anxiety,” said Paul Sakuda, a cousin.
But Mbagathi District Hospital Medical Superintendent Andrew Suleh said his workers were not negligent, explaining that the facility is under-staffed.
“The incidences of patients getting lost are quite frequent. We are dealing with a porous fence and we have about 20 to 30 percent of the patients who are very confused. Sometimes they get lost and we report to the police like we did in this incident,” he told Capital FM News on Tuesday.
“Most of the time you find that a patient has run away, gone home and then is returned by the relatives.”
Sakuda’s relatives also expressed alarm as to how she got out of the institution without being detected by anyone.
Her husband who was still distraught even after she was found, saying the incident raised substantial concerns over the care given to patients in hospitals. He said they were informed of her disappearance hours after she had vanished.
“We heard at around 12pm that she was at the Kenyatta National Hospital but we still do not know who took her there,” he said.
Another relative recounted the ordeal they had to undergo in their search for her.
“They never even told us immediately what had happened. They waited until the visiting hours which were about 12pm when we came and never saw her. When we asked about her whereabouts, they told us that she had left,” she said.
“We never got the truth of what was going on so we decided that the best thing to do was to start looking for her beginning from her home.”
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