Piece by: JULIUS OTIENO

15 February 2022

ODM leader Raila Odinga has opened up about his daughter Rosemary’s illness, for the first time revealing a mistake by Kenyan doctors that interfered with her eyesight.

On Sunday, Raila explained the circumstances that led to Rosemary’s eyesight complications and plunged the family into distress and desperate attempts to help her.

He spoke in an interview with Asian News International while on his trip to India.

Raila was expected to jet back into the country on Monday after his 10-day trip abroad, including India where he took his daughter for medical review.

The former prime minister said his daughter had developed a brain haemorrhage and was taken to hospital for surgery.

“My daughter got sick about three years ago. She had haemorrhage as a result of which she was operated in Nairobi,” he told ANI.

“In the process of that operation, somehow they interfered with the optic nerve,” Raila said, lifting the lid on the genesis of his daughter’s eyesight complications.

In 2017, Rosemary was diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage in a Nairobi hospital.

A brain haemorrhage is leaking or bleeding of blood inside the brain caused by the rapture of a blood vessel.

Medical doctor Bernard Muia said the condition has several causes including bulging of the vessels and high blood pressure.

“The common cause of bleeding inside the brain, in fact, 15 per cent of people suffering from a brain haemorrhage, is caused by hypertension,” Muia said.

The doctor said depending on the extent and exact location of the bleeding, it is highly possible that during surgery certain nerves can be interfered with.

Muia said surgery to evacuate the blood from the "unwanted" part of the brain is the best treatment for brain haemorrhage.

Raila narrated the family’s harrowing experience and desperate efforts to restore their daughter’s eyesight.

The family, he said, has flown her to high-end hospitals abroad, including in Germany, South Africa, Israel, India and China, but none of the facilities reinstated her sight.

In a previous interview with NTV, Raila said his daughter spent three months in South Africa.

“…. but unfortunately she was not able to recover her eyesight. We sent her to Israel again but no improvement showed. Then she came back to Kenya,” he had said.

While in South Africa, the former PM said, his wife, Ida rented an apartment to attend to their daughter but things did not work out for her.

The family then took her to Israel but found out that the facilities there could not treat her condition.

They decided to bring her back home where they secured the services of a Chinese doctor who discovered that the operation performed was incomplete.

“What was supposed to have been removed from her head was re-growing,” he said.

The doctor, he said, sent an MRI scan to a professor in a university in China who said Rosemary’s situation was an emergency.

“That is how we sent her to China. In China, they did a wonderful job. After which, she came back. She could walk. She could talk without much difficulty,” he said.

“The problem was that the eyes had been interfered with during the operation,” he said.

From there, Rosemary was sent to Germany for treatment but again, it was not successful.

Almost giving up, Raila revealed that a friend suggested to him that there is a facility in India that could treat the condition.

The facility uses traditional medicines.

“Ultimately, now people were giving up…at first, everybody was a little bit apprehensive saying that we have tried all the best institutions in the world. But this friend of mine persisted and Rosemary also had faith,” he adds.

And so, in September 2019, they took her to Karela Sreedhareeyam Ayurvedic Eye Hospital in India.

She spent four weeks at the facility using traditional medicine grown within the institution before she was discharged.

“The institution, after she came back here, said it would take about three months before her eyesight improves. After three months, they called her and asked her to do some tests."

Raila has told NTV that a local doctor had told the family that with the results, he could give her some googles which he ordered from an optician in Germany.

“After one week she came, put them on and there she was seeing. She told me Daddy, I can see. I can see. I can see. I have seen my kitchen. I have seen my bedroom. I have seen my children. Now I am seeing the flowers for the first time.

“She was very excited that she had regained her sight. This was a pleasant surprise for my family,” the former Prime Minister said.

The AU envoy revealed that Rosemary was scheduled to go back for a checkup in 2020 but could not travel because of the Covid 19 travel ban.

“She was waiting and now finally we are able to come and last Monday we arrived and they told us there is a big improvement in eyesight,” he told ANI.

Raila said he discussed with the management of the hospital and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he met during his trip, to set up a branch in Nairobi to help many Kenyans who may not afford to travel to India.

Raila and Modi are friends.

“I have suggested to them that they should come and set up a branch in Nairobi Kenya and I am going to work with them to set up this centre,” he said.

He added, “I have discussed with PM Modi to bring this treatment method (traditional) to Africa and use our indigenous plants for therapeutics.”