BY DARLINGTON MWASHITA
TWO nurses stationed at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo allegedly abandoned an expecting mother and left her to give birth unattended, leading to the newly-born baby falling from the bed and dying.
Sekerai Museka (41) and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu (36) pleaded not guilty to the charge of culpable homicide when they appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Lizwe Jamela on Friday.
They were remanded out of custody to March 26 for trial.
The court heard that on November 20, 2019 at 3am, the complainant Purity Dube of Cowdray Park was admitted at Mpilo Central Hospital when she experienced labour pains.
It is alleged that Dube called for help from Museka and Ndlovu who were on duty, but the two failed to attend to her.
As a result, she ended up delivering a baby girl on her on.
However, the baby slipped from the bed and landed on the floor just before the two nurses entered the room.
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Museka cut the umbilical cord from the baby and took Dube who was unconscious to the resuscitation room. The doctors came to attend to the baby in the resuscitation room.
However, the two did not disclose to the doctors that the baby had fallen from the bed.
At around 5am, the baby was transferred to the neo-natal intensive care unit.
Dube was later told that her baby had passed on. A post-mortem report revealed that the cause of death was intracranial haemorrhage and head injury.
A police report led to the arrest of the two nurses.
