The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
A 32-YEAR-OLD teacher from Shurugwi District in the Midlands Province who was bitten by a snake died in a hospital queue last week after nurses at a Gweru hospital allegedly took close to two hours to attend to him. Mr Taurai Mawuto, an Accounts teacher at Hanke Adventist High School, was bitten by a snake on Sunday evening at his house at the school as he arrived from Mutoko where he had gone to visit his wife.
Mr Mawuto’s relatives blame his death on negligence by staff from two hospitals that he visited seeking treatment. Mr Mawuto’s wife, Delight, with whom he had just got married and wedded in December last year, was still in shock, struggling to come to terms with her husband’s death when Sunday News caught up with her.
“I wasn’t around when he died but what I heard is that he was not attended to on time. I wouldn’t want to say much now because I might end up saying things I will regret,” she said.
Mr Mawuto’s friend, Mr Melusi Ndlovu, said proper procedures in treating a snakebite were not followed by the nurses who attended to him at the first hospital he visited. The situation, Mr Ndlovu said, was further worsened at another Gweru hospital where his friend sought further treatment but spent almost two hours without being attended to.
According to Mr Ndlovu, his friend was bitten by a snake on Sunday evening at his house but did not seek immediate medical attention as he did not suspect a snake bite, despite spending the whole night feeling unwell.
“He only went to the clinic the next morning on Monday after he had spent the whole night in pain. They wrote a snake bite query and immediately referred him to Shurugwi District Hospital. On his way to Shurugwi Hospital, he decided to proceed to Gweru and went to another clinic where they gave him an injection and told him to come back the next morning,” he said.
Mr Ndlovu said, procedurally, snakebite patients are treated and admitted for two to three days while their conditions are being monitored, something nurses at the clinic did not do. He added that after being attended to at the clinic, his friend went back home and had problems breathing the whole night and went back to the hospital on Tuesday.
“On Tuesday he sent me a message around 8am telling me that he was at the hospital and that his condition was getting worse. I rushed from my workplace and got to the hospital around 11am. He had left the queue to look for water but was struggling to walk. I rushed to get him the water but when I came back he was starting to breath heavily. I rushed into the hospital to get a wheelchair as well as alert nurses. By the time we got my friend inside the hospital he was now gasping for air and they tried everything they could but it just wasn’t enough. He died,” narrated Mr Ndlovu.
Efforts to get a comment from authorities at the hospital were fruitless. Mr Mawuto was buried on Thursday in Rockford, Shurugwi.
