She took a step of faith and pain to serve expectant mothers.

Ms Alice Wanjiru, a nurse, had just delivered at Maragua District Hospital but she did not get time to bond with her daughter.

On April 7, last year, Ms Wanjiru had just delivered at the hospital when gangsters struck.

As the thieves robbed some patients of their mobile phones and money, others were crying out in labour pain as they neared delivery.

There were no nurses on duty in sight. “The nurses had been tied and locked up in one of the rooms,” she recalls.

For a second, Ms Wanjiru was in a trance but the call of duty and maternal instincts to serve the mothers in labour prompted her to act.

Perhaps Chinua Achebe’s words in Things Fall Apart “A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing” explains Ms Wanjiru actions.

“Although in pain, I dragged myself to them as they desperately needed help. I started helping them deliver one by one,” she narrates.