The family of Chantal Ngwinondebe, a patient who died at Baho International Hospital (BIH) during a surgical operation in 2021, has officially lodged an appeal against a court decision to acquit the medics who carried out the procedure.
Ngwinondebe, 54, passed-on in September 2021 as doctors attempted to remove an intrauterine device (IUD) from her body.
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Since then, Dr. Gaspard Ntahonkiriye, a gynecologist, and Dr. Alfred Mugemanshuro, an anesthesiologist – the team that carried out the procedure - have been in courts of law on charges of negligence and less cautiousness that, allegedly, caused their former patient’s death.
Among other things, the prosecutors accused the medics of using a hysteroscopy, a surgical intervention that they should not have used in such a case, because there were better and simpler procedures to treat the patient’s condition.
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A hysteroscopy, a procedure used to examine the inside of the womb (uterus), is the inspection of the uterine cavity by endoscopy with access through the cervix.
Citing a provisional autopsy report, the prosecutors also raised issues on how the process of anesthesia – the use of medicines to prevent pain during surgery and other procedures – was not done properly.
The report indicated that Ngwinondebe died of a condition called laryngospasm, a seizure of the vocal cords that temporarily makes it difficult for a person to speak or breathe. This condition, according to the prosecutors, would not have killed her if the necessary drugs and equipment were available in the operation theatre, and if the doctors made an effort to detect what was happening.
The prosecutors claimed that the theatre lacked crucial supplies including oxygen, as well as adrenaline, a drug used to treat cardiac arrest.
In their defence, the medics told the court that professionally, they did all they had to do.
They also insisted that both oxygen and adrenaline were available during the operation.
In December 2022, the court issued a verdict acquitting the two medics.
The acquittal was mainly based on explanations given to court by a couple of doctors that were tasked to explain the technical details surrounding the case. These included Dr. Jean-Bonaventure Uwineza, one of the medics that carried out a probe into Baho Hospital’s operations in the aftermath of Ngwinondebe’s death.
He told the court that when his team arrived at the hospital to do the investigation, they found things in the right shape. For example, he said, they found enough oxygen, as well as adrenaline that could be used for a whole year.
When the judge asked him to explain to the court what informed the decision to close the hospital last year, he responded that it was not his team that closed the hospital, but the Medical and Dental Council.
Speaking to The New Times, Paul Jabo, the widower, said he already filed an appeal to the intermediate court of Nyarugenge, through the prosecutors.
Among other things, he said, the appeal is based on the fact that the two experts who were tasked to explain the technical details to the court said they knew nothing about the reasons that led to the closure of the hospital in the aftermath of Nginondebe’s death.
They claimed that the Medical and Dental Council closed the hospital and it is the institution that should explain the reason behind the move.
Jabo also complained about the fact that Francois-Xavier Hakizimana, another expert who was brought to explain technical details to the court, is a mere forensic expert, not a gynecologist and therefore cannot explain things related to gynecology.
A date for the appeal hearing is not yet set.