A Form Three student from Kagumo Secondary School is at risk of becoming paralyzed after he was vaccinated at a health facility in Murang’a.
Joseph Mwangi went for a tetanus injection at the Maragua hospital after sustaining minor injuries from a boda boda accident.
Mwangi said that two days after the injection, his left hand and leg started swelling.
This made him go back to the same facility for further examination but instead of attending to him, the medics took away the medical report card and he never saw them again.
“One of the medical officers took my card and they entered an office with a colleague but they never came out and I was forced to wait for more than four hours,” Mwangi said.
“I finally gave up and went back to school where I reported the matter to the teacher,” he added.
He said that his two limbs are numb and he is unable to move them, especially at night.
Two days later, James Njeri, the deputy headteacher accompanied Mwangi back to the hospital, only to be shocked when medics said the latter’s medical card could not be found.
“We could not trace the record of Mwangi having attended the hospital and all other necessary documents were missing,” he said.
According to the deputy headteacher, a medical officer at the facility told him that the dispensary did not have the tetanus vaccine for a number of years and that it’s not clear what the student was injected with.
“We want to know who attended to the student and administered the vaccine,” the medic said.
However, the deputy principal said that despite the hospital’s administration trying to cover up the mess by hiding the medical report, the school has some copies that the students submitted back after his first visit.
He said the hospital should take responsibility for mishandling the patient leading to health complications.
Mwangi’s mother Ann Wanjiru said they sought medical attention from a private hospital in the area and that they were referred to Murang’a district hospital.
“At Murang’a we were further referred to Kijabe mission hospital for specialized treatment but the cost is too high for us to meet,” she said.
She now wants the medic who injected her son with the lethal vaccine to cater for his treatment.
She expressed her fears that should an intervention fail to be done at the right time her son could become paralyzed and his entire life affected.
