WESTERN PROVINCE 

A medical doctor at Kiziba Hospital has been accused over  allegedly discharging a female patient who died thereafter.

The police said relatives of the deceased including the husband allege that Dr. Tekleberhan, an Ethiopian national discharged Josie Uwamahoro, a resident of Kiziba Refugee camp, before she had recovered. She had been admitted with stomach pain and vomiting on July 2.

A relative identified as Tuyisenge said that the patient never took the doctor’s medicine during the time she was admitted, instead demanding to be treated traditionally. However, sources at Kiziba Hospital dismissed the allegations against the doctor, who is currently in hiding.

Medical sources say that the patients’ relatives are to blame because they withdrew the patient from hospital and took her to a ‘witch doctor’ before returning her.

The sources allege that  they had referred the patient to Kibuye Hospital after sensing that they could not handle her case, but the relatives refused.

"I personally called an ambulance from Kibuye Hospital after seeing that Uwamahoro was in critical condition but she and her family rejected the transfer,” said François Gakumba a health worker at the hospital.

Gakumba defended the Ethiopian doctor saying he had a good reputation for the last four years he had worked with them.

According to Gakumba, the doctor disappeared to avoid angry residents who were blaming him for the death. Cases of patients dying in local shrines without being taken to health centres are common among the refugees. And authorities blame it on ignorance.

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