Former First Lady Lucy Kibaki will spend a third day at Nairobi Hospital today, and may be required to stay there for a few more days. There has been little information about her illness.
“She is responding well to treatment,” said Mr Ngare Gituku, the former President Mwai Kibaki’s press secretary, who is now the family’s spokesman, “and the doctors want to conduct a series of tests to ascertain that there is absolutely no issue that would crop up at any given time.”
He said there was a range of tests that need to be done and which had necessitated her stay in hospital.
“As you many know, some tests require 48 hours for results to come out. They (doctors) would like to be with her especially being a weekend so that they can do that properly,” he added on the phone.
Separately, a source at the hospital told Nation that Mrs Kibaki was expected to remain at the facility for the next “two or three days” for treatment but had been moved from the Intensive Care Unit. “This is to ensure that every parameter they are interested in is interrogated properly so that when she is released, doctors will have confidence that she is okay,” said the source who could not be revealed.
There is strict access to the former First Lady with only close family members being allowed to visit her. “The family came with their own doctor and nurse and there are strict instructions as to who is allowed into the ward,” the source added.
Mrs Kibaki was said to have been taken to the hospital on Friday at around 5 am and staff on duty did not immediately recognise her because of the low-key nature of the admission. Other reports say she was first treated at Gertrude’s Hospital, which is near her home, before being transferred to Nairobi Hospital.
Mr Gituku had on Friday said it was a “routine check-up”, adding, “there should be no alarm at all”. Mrs Kibaki has not been seen in public for nearly five years. Her last public function was on August 27, 2010, during the promulgation of the new Constitution. (Additional reporting from Sunday Nation)
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