Nurses’ Negligence Results In Newborn Baby Losing Leg
A mother is suing Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals for alleged negligence by nurses which resulted in the amputation of her child’s leg.
The mother, Tiny Masvaure, gave birth to a baby girl on 23 December 2020 at Mbuya Nehanda maternity hospital which is under the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals.
Masvaure, an asthmatic patient, suffered complications in her breathing and gave birth to a pre-term baby girl, at 34 weeks and a day.
She alleged that nurses ignored her baby’s crying for 11 days, only to realise her leg had rotten resulting in the amputation.
Masvaure’s lawyer, Paida Saurombe of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), has written to the hospital demanding hospital records of the baby. Wrote Saurombe:
We have instructions to demand as we hereby do that you provide us within seven days of receipt of this letter, all hospital records regarding the victim, all minutes of the investigations conducted on how she came to be amputated, a prosthetic leg for her and a comprehensive compensation plan for past and future medical expense.
When the baby was born, Masvaure asked the nurses if there were any complications with the baby and she was advised that her baby was healthy.
She said she was told that her baby would be placed on antibiotics as a precautionary measure considering she was a preterm baby.
A cannula was then put on the child’s hand and after two days the hand started swelling.
The nurses then removed the cannula and put it on her leg on 8 January, but it started to swell after some hours.
When Masvaure informed the nurses about the development, she was labelled a “troublesome parent”. Her lawyer Saurombe wrote:
Our client did not relent in alerting the hospital staff who ignored her. This was despite the baby crying continuously and appearing very uncomfortable.
This unfortunate neglect and abuse of the baby despite the protestations of the mother led to the child’s leg being amputated on January 19, 2021, because according to hospital sources the leg had rotten.
The mother and the baby ended up staying three months in an isolated ward.
The child is now over a year and learning to stand and walk but there are fears she risks falling down and sustaining more serious injuries.
According to Saurombe, they were advised that the procedure was wrongfully done such that the girl will need constant corrective surgeries as she grows up.
