Police in Mbale City have arrested a medic with a hunt on for a nurse accused of causing the death of a 2-year-old child Sharif Mutumba.
According to police, Sharif Mutumba collapsed and died on spot after he was injected by a nurse at a drug shop.
Police say the deceased, a resident of Kiduda Cell, Namatala Ward in Mbale City’s Industrial City Division, had flu and cough when he visited the nameless drug shop.
“The preliminary investigations indicate that the grandmother of the deceased took him for treatment. The nurse administered an injectable medicine through the cannula and the child died,” Elgon region police spokesperson, ASP Rogers Taitika said on Friday.
ASP Taitika added that the suspect who owns the drug shop in the same village went into hiding after committing the crime.
“We appeal to the public to cooperate with us and give us the whereabouts of the nurse so that she can be arrested and charged. Good enough we have arrested her boss,” he remarked.
A senior doctor who requested not to be named in order to speak freely attributed “the death of the child to a wrong injection or expired drugs.”
But police detectives May 12 took the drug shop owner to the facility “to reconstruct the crime scene where Mutumba met his death.”
The reconstruction lasted about two hours before he was driven back to Police station in a patrol vehicle.
Additionally, ASP Taitika revealed that police inquiries indicated that the suspect was operating the drug shop without a practicing license.
By press time, the family of the deceased had intensified demands for a quick probe.
“I wanted to get him (Mutumba) drugs for cough and flu. The nurse insisted on testing my grandson for malaria and typhoid and she did the injection forcefully,” said Lukiya Logose, grandmother of the child as she urged justice.
According to her, the deceased’s condition worsened before he died shortly after.
