Like any other expectant woman is full of hopes, so was Joyce Adhiambo.
But as fate would have it, Adhiambo who was expecting a baby boy is today a motherless woman without her uterus courtesy of delayed response by an ambulance which was to facilitate her transfer from Sigomere Sub-County Hospital to a Siaya County Referral Hospital, saw her lose the baby and the womb at the same time.
On Wednesday, she narrated how Sigomere Hospital attendants ignored her cries for help when she was taken there after she fell.
"My pleas to the medics that the waters had burst fell on deaf ears. I was left in bed unattended, even as the nurses walked in and out of the ward. It was a trainee nurse who responded to my cries and beckoned to medics to come to my rescue," she said.
Adhiambo together with her husband are pointing an accusing finger at Sigomere hospital medics, whose alleged negligence they believe costed them the baby and worst of all the uterus.
The victim laments how she was severally told to have patience to wait for the ambulance which took almost eight hours to arrive.
At Siaya County Referral hospital, it took her another two hours before she got access to theater only to be slapped with the sad news.
"The medics at the referral facility did not take the case as an emergency, and kept me waiting for slightly over two hours before wheeling me to the theatre where they broke the sad news to me," she lamented
Adhiambo, 41, who left the hospital last Sunday now wants justice served. Her husband insists that the concerned parties in both facilities should pay for their negligence.
"My wife had been going for check-ups at Sigomere hospital and they ought to have kept her records and consequently handled her complications appropriately," stated 38-year-old Caleb Obiero, husband to the victim.
Sigomere Hospital superintendent Dr Odhiambo Aduol could not directly respond to the issue. "Kindly get comments from the County Health Executive," Aduol said when contacted.
Health Executive Dorothy Owino admitted to the issue having been dealt with in both facilities. However, she defended the medics, terming the incident unfortunate.