After a grueling 36-hour shift, Dr Desree Moraa, a medical intern at Gatundu Level 5 Hospital in Kiambu, returned home tired on Sunday evening.
For three months, Dr Moraa, 27, had been hosted by her colleague who had rented a one-bedroom apartment - House No G8 - in a five storey apartment near the hospital.
On Sunday, the apartment’s caretaker recalled he met Dr Moraa as she walked to the house and greeted her.
“I saw her come in because I was going out to watch the match between Manchester City and Arsenal. She said hi as she hurriedly went to their ground floor corner house,” the caretaker told Nation.Africa on Tuesday.
The rails where Desree Moraa's body was discovered by the apartment's caretaker.
Photo credit: Leon Lidigu | Nation Media Group
“Dr Moraa was not a lady of many words and she hardly spoke or mingled with tenants here,” he recounted.
When the football match ended around 8:30pm, the caretaker returned to the apartment and decided to empty the garbage bins stationed at a common area on each floor.
As he went up the stairs, 30 minutes after arrival, he stumbled on a shocking discovery.
“I saw her body donned in black jeans and a cream hoodie dangling by the window grills. Many people were still out while those indoors had not yet noticed. I immediately called the police,” said the caretaker who spoke confidentially.
According to the caretaker, Dr Moraa’s friend was the last person to have a conversation with her roommate and best friend.
“She told me that when Dr Moraa came home after the 36-hour shift, she had some ice-cream. She told her roommate that she just wanted to go to the roof-top to breathe,” he recounted.
After 15 minutes, Dr Moraa came back to the house, left her phone and then told her roommate that she was going back to the rooftop as she needed to be alone. That was the last time she was seen alive.
Two weeks ago, Dr Moraa’s roommate had complained to the caretaker that she (Dr Moraa) had brought a cat to their house yet there was a policy against pets.
The door to the one-bedroom apartment which Desree Moraa shared with a friend.
Photo credit: Leon Lidigu | Nation Media Group
“Dr Moraa was not my tenant on paper because she had only come to share the house with her friend as she did not have an accommodation of her own. I collect rent from her friend and all the documentation are in her name,” he explained.
He went on: "I later learnt that pets are very important to help one cope with depression from intern doctors who live here. I allowed her to keep Blossom, her cat on condition it remains indoors. But her roommate did not want the cat, so she had to get rid of it."
“Considering I am a father and here is a child who doesn’t have accommodation but is very bright and from what I learnt was a very gifted doctor, I let her stay with her best friend. I even allocated her some space in my store where she could keep her things because their house is small,” the caretaker added.
On Monday, Moraa's parents came to collect all her belongings as her best friend, who hadn’t picked our calls, perhaps too traumatised by the ordeal, sought refuge in her parents’ house.
Official postmortem results obtained by Nation.Africa on Tuesday indicate that Dr Moraa died as a result of asphyxia, a lack of oxygen or excess carbon dioxide in the body.
This is usually caused by interruption of breathing or insufficient oxygen supply and resulting in unconsciousness and often death.
Inside the building where the late Desree Moraa lived.
Photo credit: Leon Lidigu | Nation Media Group
“Asphyxia secondary to neck compression due to ligature strangulation,” states the report signed by pathologist Dr Catherine Munyendo.
But what drove Dr Moraa, who is one of eight medical interns at Gatundu Level 5 Hospital, to take her own life?
A fellow intern at the facility, who said he was one of the few people Dr Moraa had opened up to, confirmed that she did back-to-back shifts for 36 hours that day which wore her down.
“She told me she was so depressed because last Friday she had an altercation with one of our senior supervisors who is very harsh. That’s where it all started,” the intern doctor recalled.
He added that Dr Moraa had been compelled to be in the surgical ward for 36 hours with no nurses to assist her as they are currently on strike over a pay dispute.
She had interned at the facility for three months and the work environment was taking a toll on her.
“I told her the predicament we find ourselves in is very hard but manageable because the supervisor can make or break your career,” he said.
“When we came here as interns we were 10, things got unbearable for a common friend we shared with Desree and he quit and moved to Mombasa,” he disclosed.
“You are embarrassed before patients by supervisors, made to feel like you know nothing. This lowers one’s self-esteem because you will be publicly humiliated, the trust will be broken after which you will be left with the patient to take care of,” he said.
“The patients in the casualty department sometimes are very aggressive and considering it’s an emergency department, we suffer endless burnouts,” he lamented.
The main entrance to Gatundu Level 5 Hospital in Kiambu County.
Photo credit: Leon Lidigu | Nation Media Group
The young medic, who spoke to us after a 12-hour overnight shift, further disclosed that seeing patients suffer and in pain affects them so much.
“The stories that patients give you just drain you emotionally. There’s no psychological support or professional counselling services offered to us let alone the fact that we do all this work with no pay,” he said.
On Tuesday when Nation.Africa visited Gatundu Level 5 Hospital, officials from the Ministry of Health, the County Government of Kiambu, Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacist & Dentist Union(KMPDU), Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) and interns from the facility were in a meeting at the hospital’s boardroom, perhaps to find answers as to what led to the death of the inter doctor.
“This is a private meeting, you are not welcome here,” a female senior official said.
“We are aware of the suffering these interns have been enduring, we are also aware one of our members is accused of abusing the interns. Harassment of interns in our trade must stop. We will not encourage it,” KMPDU Kiambu Branch chair Dr Maina Githinji told Nation.Africa after the meeting.
“What we have always been talking about is now coming out clearly, we need to employ more doctors and pay them well because Kiambu County which has three million people but has only 300 doctors leaving a heavy load on the backs of interns who are not paid at all,” Dr Githinji added.
“We are most of all encouraging our senior doctors to use better methods to communicate to interns in acceptable language so that everyone will feel that their dignity is respected,“ he said.
The official promised that KMPDU would reach out to Dr Moraa’s family once their investigations into her death are concluded.
He stressed that medical interns are doctors who are fully covered in their return-to-work formula which they signed with the health ministry after their 56-day strike earlier this year.
“The issue of payment of interns is still in court but we are expecting a ruling on the matter on Thursday this week,” said the union official.
However, the government has maintained that it cannot engage KMPDU on paying interns Sh206,000 as it is a matter that is currently before court.
