A 35-year-old woman June Wanza Mulupi, died of sepsis after a botched breast augmentation surgery in Karen, Kenya.
The mother of three died last week at Nairobi Hospital where she was rushed after developing complications from a breast enlargement surgery.
The procedure was carried out by an unidentified surgeon in his office at Galleria Mall last week. Wanza was discharged but developed severe abdominal pain that worsened.
She had gone to Nairobi Hospital for review on Wednesday and was immediately admitted to the High Dependency Unit, then the ICU.
Doctors realised that her intestines had been cut or punctured in the first surgery, apparently a fat transfer augmentation. Her blood pressure was dangerously low.
“Because her intestines were cut, all the waste was seeping out and spreading inside the stomach. That caused an infection called sepsis. Doctors battled to save her life on Friday but she died from the infection,” a family member told the Star on Tuesday.
Wanza is to be buried on Saturday. The family requested time to grieve before they divulge more information.
“We are having the postmortem tomorrow [today]. Allow us to finish that process,” they said through lawyer Jared Orare.
Wanza’s intestine had been severed, and waste had spilled into her abdominal cavity — the cause of the acute pains.
She developed sepsis, an infection that takes effect when the body’s immune system releases chemicals into the bloodstream to fight an infection.
A team of doctors, led by Prof Stanley Khainga, frantically attended to Wanza. Speaking to The Star yesterday, Dr. Khainga was called in as a corrective surgeon after Wanza was admitted to Nairobi Hospital.
The surgeon said the patient had also developed gas gangrene, likely from the incisions made during the surgery ;
“It was gas gangrene which is an infection of soft tissues from bacteria on the skin. I was just called in to control that. When gas gangrene gets under the skin, it kills blood supply and eats the fat and whatever remains. If you don’t remove the dead skin then it spreads all over and you can’t control it,” he said.
“The wounds through which the surgery is done are the ones that now become the portals of entry of the bacteria. For her, it was an infection that was too fast. I was just intervening to control that and correct the shock and so on. I was in Nairobi Hospital when they called me. She was a referral. As a consultant, I was trying to sort out the problem.”
