Doctor in hot water for seizures treatment that went wrong

On January 3, 2013 a young mother took her one-and-a-half-years old daughter to Gertrude’s Hospital Muthaiga following a series of seizures.

The girl had been diagnosed with developmental delay seven months after being born, and was also found to have brain damage. She was given medicine that she responded well to.

But after her first birthday, she started suffering seizures.

When the girl and her mother visited Gertrude’s Muthaiga in 2013 to treat the seizures, they were attended to by respected paediatric neurologist Donald Oyatsi, and they had at least 10 other review sessions in the next six months.

Dr Oyatsi first prescribed Tegretol, which was intended to manage the seizures. When that did not work, the doctor added a drug called Epillim to the regimen. That did not do anything for the young girl.

The doctor added two other drugs – Keppra and Lamictal tablets – to the one-and-a-half-year-old girl’s regimen but that did not work either.

Created complications

The girl’s mother now says in court that the drugs prescribed did not improve her daughter’s condition, and that Dr Oyatsi refused to present himself for consultation after the medicines created complications. She adds that Dr Oyatsi refused to refer her to another neurologist.

Two weeks ago, High Court judge John Mativo dismissed a case  filed by Dr Oyatsi seeking to quash a Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board’s Disciplinary and Ethics Committee decision that implicated him in overdosing the minor and ignoring drugs universally used to treat seizures in children.

Justice Mativo’s decision has opened the door for the girl’s mother to pursue Dr Oyatsi for negligence, which could culminate in a huge multimillion-shilling payout.

After falling out with Dr Oyatsi in 2013, the girl’s mother opted to seek treatment abroad. She identified the Children’s Hospital Orange County in California, United States. But this would cost millions of shillings, so the mother opted to sell a piece of land. 

With the proceeds and a medical report from Dr Oyatsi, the mother and her daughter flew to the US, where they would stay until January 2014.

Doctors in the US advised that the girl be withdrawn from Tegretol and Lamictal, and instead use Phenobarbital. Phenobarbital is a mild sedative used to treat seizures.

Upon return, the mother consulted a doctor at Aga Khan Hospital, and a drug called phenobarbital was prescribed.

She says that since being treated in California, her daughter has only been hospitalised once, in 2017.

Dr Oyatsi argued in court that the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee falsely accused him of failing to file his written arguments in reply to the mother’s complaint.

Treating epilepsy

Dr Oyatsi insisted that he filed his defence papers before the board six months before the decision implicating him was made.

He added that the panel that heard his case had no experts in treating epilepsy and that they relied on material downloaded from the internet to implicate him.

But the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board in its response said it is made up of several doctors and dentists who have the capacity and authority to determine such complaints.

The committee added that on several occasions, Dr Oyatsi failed to file his papers on time, and had at first furnished a shallow statement that did not address the allegations on overdosing a minor.

Dr Oyatsi’s final written arguments and detailed statements were filed in August, 2019, which was more than one month after the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee had ordered him to submit the documents.

The committee’s lawyers argued that no professional body would simply arrive at a decision based on material downloaded from the internet without seeking opinions from experts in the affected field.

Justice Mativo ruled that the Judicial Review division of the High Court, where Dr Oyatsi sued, is only concerned with whether due process was followed in arriving at an administrative decision.

The judge found that the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee had followed the laid down procedures in arriving at its decision, which implicated Dr Oyatsi in wrongdoing.