Two Kenyan health workers have been sacked after a woman died while seeking treatment in a county government hospital.

Local media reported that the 58-year-old woman died as she waited to be attended to by Laikipia county medical staff who were attending a colleague’s birthday party at the Nanyuki Teaching and Referral Hospital

The deceased’s son said his plea to the hospital staff went unheeded, even as his mother’s condition deteriorated until she died.

He said his mother who needed blood transfusion had been taken to the hospital’s emergency unit on Monday and several lab tests were prescribed.

However, they were told to wait as nurses and laboratory attendants attended the party, he added.

On Friday, the county health authorities said they had conducted investigations and noted that while the patient “had multiple medical complications… there was a significant level of laxity and rudeness from our laboratory staff”.

“As such an overhaul and reorganization of the laboratory department has been done and two of our health workers in this department who were found culpable have been interdicted even as we await further investigations,” a statement from the county health executive Rose Maitai noted.