Nyeri mum’s agony tests Uhuru’s free maternity plan

Patients at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi. Public health facilities have seen a surge in the number of women seeking services after President Kenyatta waived maternity fees in June last year. FILE 

By  DOROTHY KWEYU

Some eight months after President Uhuru Kenyatta waived maternity fees in all public hospitals, there are signs that things are not going the way he may have envisaged in his first Madaraka Day address to the nation.

The media is replete with cases of pregnant women suffering neglect at healthcare facilities and particularly in labour wards.

The recent case of 27-year-old Charity Wanjiku, whose baby-boy crash-landed on the floor of the Nyeri Provincial General Hospital and died shortly afterwards is clear evidence of a healthcare system that has failed to meet the nation’s expectations.

Hospital superintendent Cyrus Njoroge was quoted by the Daily Nation as saying the hospital had six patients that night (Wednesday, January 15), some of whom needed emergency operation, and only four nurses.

Both Mr Njoroge and Ms Wanjiku confirm that the tragedy occurred because she could not bear the labour pains, causing her to stand and suffering the loss of her newborn that slipped out of her womb. Mr Njoroge blamed the tragedy on severe shortage of nurses — 250 against the needed 600.

On the other hand, Ms Wanjiku and her husband, parents of two daughters, blame the loss of their only son on negligence.

“I wonder if they are mistreating patients because maternity services are free,” Mr Peter Ndigirigi, 29, said as he mourned their loss.

In a recent interview with the mother of primary healthcare in Kenya, Prof Miriam Were, who is also the chancellor of Moi University, she attributed the perceived cruelty and negligence of healthcare staff to pressure resulting from work overload.

Healthcare facilities are overstretched with the thin staff available caught up in emergencies, leading to neglect of patients whose condition may not look critical. Ironically, most of the conditions that clog Kenya’s health centres and hospitals — such as diarrhoea and malaria — can be easily managed through primary healthcare education targeting environmental hygiene.

However, until structures and financial resources are in place to fully roll out the community health strategy, the government must rise to the occasion and address the crisis of maternal deaths in Kenya.

Deep alarm

In the wake of the Nyeri hospital tragedy, Kenya’s women lawyers early last week released a passionate press statement in which they expressed great concern and deep alarm “at the increasingly troubling trend of maternal deaths in the country”.

 

Apart from the Nyeri tragedy, which they cited, the Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida-Kenya) also expressed its alarm at the recent death of three women and six infants at the Siaya Referral Hospital due to blood shortage in the hospital.

Fida in its statement signed by chairperson, Ruth Aura, believes that “the number of preventable maternal deaths in Kenya has risen and achieving the Millennium Development Goal on health remains a challenge” unless it is properly addressed.

She attributes the current morass in the health sector, and especially as it affects women, to “hospital negligence, a lack of sufficient human resources and deficient budgetary allocation of funds to government hospitals leading to inadequate facilities, drugs and equipment.”