Nurse sedates, rapes colleague at Migori dispensary

The male nurse, who is also in charge of a dispensary in Kanyamkago, Uriri sub-county, is reported to have injected a counsellor working with a local NGO but posted at the hospital with a sedative before raping her.PHOTO: COURTESY

A nurse at a health facility in Migori County has been accused of drugging and raping a woman he works with

The male nurse, who is also in charge of a dispensary in Kanyamkago, Uriri sub-county, is reported to have injected a counsellor working with a local NGO but posted at the hospital with a sedative before raping her.

The counsellor said she had visited the dispensary because she had chest pains and a cough.

“On Thursday afternoon, when the chest pains got worse and my cough persisted, he injected me and told me the next injection would be after 10 hours,’’ she said. That, according to the nurse, would be 10pm.

The counsellor was apprehensive about inviting the male nurse to her home because had made frequent passes at her before.

“I knew if he came to my house, he would refuse to leave. So I went to his place when he insisted. Besides, I needed the medication,” she added.

The victim claims she passed out but when she regained consciousness two hours later, she noticed that her clothes had been unfastened and her undergarments were around her feet.

“When I woke up at around 11.30pm, my bra was unhooked and my panties were on my feet. I asked why he had forced himself on me and he said it was no big deal,” she said

To her horror, the nurse then went to the dispensary and picked an HIV/Aids testing kits and tested himself right before her eyes to assure her that he was not HIV positive.

“He said I had nothing to be afraid of because he was HIV negative and told me this was a small matter that could be resolved quite easily,” she said.

The counsellor than bided her time until she got an opportunity to escape. She found an unlocked padlock nearby, shut the door then locked the man in the house before she screamed for help.

“I screamed for help and people came. He was arrested and taken to Uriri police station” she said.

The case has been booked under OB number OB\4\16\09\16 at 8.24 am.

The dispensary’s chairman, Philip Ododa, confirmed the incident.

“I got a call at around midnight and when I got to the facility, I found a crowd in the compound.

A woman was crying, saying she had been raped,” Ododa said.

When he was asked to recount the events, the male nurse responded that the counsellor was insane.

But this theory was rejected by Ododa.

“The counsellor is someone I have seen and I have no reason to believe she is insane. She presented a strong case and we called the police who arrested the nurse,” said Ododa, who had to calm down the crowd that had gathered and was baying for the nurse’s blood.

“The following day, we took the woman to Uriri Health Centre from where she was referred to Migori Level Four Hospital for a further check-up,” Ododa said.

The woman told The Standard on Sunday that her blood samples were taken and sent to a lab in Nairobi to determine the drug that had been used to sedate her because the nurse thrown the vials he had used into a latrine. Later the male nurse was released as authorities waited for the lab results from Nairobi.

The raped victim says she now fears to report for work on Monday because the perpetrator is free.

Staff in health centres in Migori have been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons over the past few months.

Last month, a clinician at Rongo Sub-district Hospital was tape recorded asking for money from a patient before he could inject her with a drug that was supposed to be administered without charge. When journalists presented the tape recording to his boss, the chief officer promised he would take action but nothing has been done. Two weeks ago, another medical official at Bware Health Centre in Uriri sub-county was caught selling drugs from the pharmacy to a stranger.