Patient in custody after shooting nurse dead in Nairobi

A patient was arrested by police after he shot dead a nurse at Chiromo Lane Medical Centre in Nairobi on Wednesday night. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Officials say the police are investigating the incident.
  • The nurse was shot in the left eye.
  • Police officers who responded to the incident took away the Mini-Ceska pistol, serial number B 573411.

Questions abound after a psychiatric patient allegedly shot and killed a nurse at an upmarket hospital on Wednesday night.

The patient is said to have arrived at Chiromo Lane Medical Centre for regular examination and medication at around 7.30 pm accompanied by his sister.

A quarter an hour later, he had shot and killed Mr Faustine Mwadilo Mwadime, 42, who had worked at the hospital since April 2014.

A nurse at the medical and rehabilitation hospital who spoke to the Nation in confidence said that the guards at the gate asked the patient to surrender his gun for safekeeping but he refused.

“He caused a commotion at the gate,” said the nurse.

“He said he would not give out his gun because he was a licensed civilian gun holder and did not trust anyone with the firearm.”

REGULAR CLIENT

The source added that since the patient was a regular client and had never caused problems, he was let in.

“The doctor on duty examined him and asked to admit him for further examination but, while in the process of admission, we just heard a gunshot and, when we went to see what had happened, we found Faustin on the floor in a pool of blood,” said the nurse.

Mr Kevin Muringe, a nurse who reported the incident at Parklands Police Station, said he had just arrived for the night shift to relieve Mr Mwadilo.

“While still in the changing room, I heard gunshots and rushed to check what happened at the nurses office only to find a patient asking for help while Mwadilo was on the floor in a pool of blood,” Mr Muringe told police.

Mr Muringe said he saw the patient’s gun on the table and his immobile colleague had a wound in the head.

ARRESTED

Police officers who responded to the incident took away the Mini-Ceska pistol, serial number B 573411, which was loaded with eight bullets.

They arrested the patient and took him to the police station while the body was taken to Chiromo Mortuary.

Gigiri OCPD Vitalis Otieno said the patient would be held until investigations are complete.

He said statements by hospital staff showed that the patient mishandled his firearm.

Faustin’s widow, Doreen Akinyi, said he was shot in the left eye and his body had a large wound on the forehead.

“I cannot tell what happened,” said a distraught Akinyi.

“I just don’t know. The hospital sent some staff to my house at 3am and they told me that a patient had shot my husband as he was admitting him.

“They said the patient had refused to surrender his gun but my husband managed to sweet-talk him to do so but when the patient was removing the bullets from it, he shot my husband.

“I do not understand this story; I just want the police to investigate and justice be served.”

Akinyi said she had called the father of her three children at around midnight to check up on him because he was supposed to have arrived home but he did not pick up her calls.

“When he failed to respond, I went to bed but I was worried about him even before his colleagues came home and broke the news,” said Akinyi at the mortuary, where she had gone to identify the body.

TOO MANY QUESTIONS

Mr Christopher Gisiri, a friend of Mwadilo’s, asked why the hospital allowed someone, and a psychiatric patient as such, to get into the hospital with a gun, knowing its danger.

“I do not even understand why, in the first place, the government licensed the gun to him,” Mr Gisiri said. “There are just too many questions.”

The Nation could not get a comment from the hospital’s management as the administrator was not in. Several calls to his private line went unanswered.

Section 5 of the Firearms Act requires that a firearm certificate be granted by the licensing officer only if satisfied that the applicant has a good reason for purchasing, acquiring or having the firearm or ammunition without danger to the public safety or to the peace.