Rwandan community rescues girl,23, after botched operation in Uganda

A few weeks ago, Sarafina Kubwimana, 23, travelled to Uganda on routine business trips.Little did she know that the trip would end in tragic experience, which left her fighting for her life – in the hands of a strange doctor and an unfamiliar “friend”.She says she was lured by a friend to someone she thought was a qualified doctor after complaining of abdominal pains – only to be subjected to unnecessarily surgical operation, which instead ruptured her uterus.The medic also allegedly tore parts of her lower intestines in the process.“When I woke up from anaesthesia, I found myself in a pool of blood with my organs destroyed. It was hell,” she told The New Times from her hospital bed in Kampala.Somehow, news reached the Rwandan High Commission in Uganda and several individual Rwandans, who mobilised assistance and helped transfer Kubwimana to a better hospital.She is now in what doctors called a stable condition although it might take long before she recovers.In the meantime, Ugandan police are looking for the private medical doctor who conducted the surgical operation gone wrong. He is on the run.One suspect identified only as Janet, who reportedly lured Kubwimana to the said medic was arrested by police at Kabalagala Police Station and charged with attempted murder.“That man is still hiding but he will not hide forever. We shall get him,” Judith Nabakoba, Uganda’s Deputy Police Spokesperson told The New Times.Groaning in pain, Kubwimana, whose her name loosely translates to mean ‘by God’s mercy’, rests on her bed with a Bible perched on her pillow. She thanks the almighty God for enabling her to live another day.She lies down facing up, a position she is likely to maintain for four months until she is finally relieved of the pain, according to her doctors. How it all beganAccording to Kubwimana, who runs a shop in Kimironko, Gasabo District, tragedy lurked when she visited a relative’s friend in Jinja District, eastern Uganda.From here, she met Janet who befriended her and promised to help her visit Kampala’s St Balikudembe Market.“She came home as a visitor and she was very friendly to me. Since I regarded her as an age mate, I felt free with her and requested that she accompanies me to the market where I was supposed to buy clothes,” Kubwimana, a Genocide survivor, narrates with a hushed tone.When they both reached Kampala, Janet advised that rather than spend money on hotel accommodation in Kampala, they spend the night together at her sister’s home in Bunga, a Kampala suburb.The following day, she recalls, Janet’s sister accompanied them to the market and it is from there that Kubwimana developed abdominal pains.“I asked her if she knew any doctor who could treat me and she told me she knew one in Munyonyo near Cinderella supermarket who had helped her heal from a similar condition,” says the girl who reveals that they were simply menstrual cramps.Menstrual cramps are pains in the belly and pelvic areas women experience during the menstrual period.Using Kiswahili as a medium of communication with Janet, Kubwimana later realised that her friend had lied to her sister that they were headed to her friend’s home.On reaching the ‘doctor’s’ clinic, Kubwimana narrates, she was asked a few questions about her condition and the ‘doctor’ straight away administered an injection that made her unconscious.“I blacked out immediately only to wake up the following day in the afternoon lying in a pool of blood with a lot of pain. I realised uterus had been cut; I was bleeding profusely.”Kubwimana says that when the ‘doctor’ saw that the situation was getting out of hand, he roughed and bumped her in his tinted car and drove her to his friend’s clinic who stayed away from the case saying it was too grave for him to handle.The ‘doctor’ then drove Kubwimana, who was at that moment writhing in pain, to Namungoona Orthodox Hospital for treatment.“While at Namungoona, someone brought my bag and I realised I was missing Rwf500,000,” she recollects.Later, the Rwandan High Commissioner to Uganda, Frank Mugambage, learnt of the girl’s plight at Namungoona and dispatched officials who transferred her to Nakasero Hospital for better medical attention.“It is always important that any Rwandan in Uganda consults the Rwanda High Commission on where to go for treatment especially when they are not sure of which hospital to go to,” Mugambage said.Dr Francis Owour, a surgeon at Nakasero Hospital, who is handling Kubwimana’s case said she had improved.“I think she is responding well to treatment” Owour said before hanging up.Kubwimana is grateful to the Rwandan envoy in Kampala and the Rwandan community, in general, for the life-saving intervention.

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Rwandan community rescues girl,23, after botched operation in Uganda