Health bosses deny Sonko claim of discovering 12 infant corpses

Nairobi County health bosses have contradicted Governor Mike Sonko’s alleged discovery of corpses of infants stuffed in boxes during what he described as an impromptu visit to Pumwani Maternity Hospital.

Health executive Ms Veska Kangogo and chief officer Mahat Jimale on Tuesday defended the facility’s staff against claims of negligence, saying none of the infants’ deaths occurred out of unmanageable circumstances.

While on a visit to the maternity referral hospital, the two gave a breakdown of how the 11 babies so discovered by the governor had died.

244 DELIVERIES

“None of the deaths occurred out of unmanageable circumstances,” said Ms Kangogo. According to the breakdown, Mr Jimale said that the 11 were an accumulative number of deaths that had been recorded at the hospital between Wednesday and Sunday last week.

“The deaths occurred between Wednesday last week and Sunday, where there were 244 deliveries,” he said.

According to Mr Jimale, four deaths were recorded as fresh stillbirth. Medically fresh stillbirths are deaths that occur within 24 hours of life.

“Two babies died on arrival as a result of low birth rates and two succumbed due to obstructed labour,” he said.

STILLBIRTH

Two other babies were delivered already dead in the womb, under a medical condition referred to as macerated stillbirth (dead foetus that has undergone loss of skin, and distortion of the features resulting from prolonged exposure to moisture in the uterus).

Stillbirth is defined as the birth of a viable baby without signs of life. A viable baby means that if it is born, it has a reasonable chance of survival.

Stillbirths account for more than 2.5 million intrauterine deaths per year worldwide. In Kenya, a report by the medical journal, The Lancet, published in 2016 notes that a child is twice as likely to be born dead in Kenya as in Mauritius and Seychelles, the countries with the lowest stillbirth rates in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr Jimale further said that four were recorded as neonatal death, a condition where the babies died within the first 28 days of life. He noted that the infants died as a result of suffocation (asphyxiation).

INTERDICTED

Finally, one baby, according to him, was brought to hospital already dead. The hospital’s acting medical superintendent, Dr Leonard Okoko, in a statement however only gave the recorded number of deaths between Friday 14 and Sunday 16 as six, after the hospital delivered 162 mothers.

The county officials’ contradiction raises questions as to whether the governor may have over-reacted when he interdicted several staff for what he termed negligence.

The governor’s knee-jerk reaction begs the question of whether he was properly briefed on the situation at the hospital.

“Pumwani Hospital should be upgraded to a National Referral Maternity Hospital managed by the national government. When Nairobians are done with the theatrical entertainment from their governor, let us discuss soberly,” tweeted Dr Ouma Oluga, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists’ Board secretary-general.

SWAP

Sonko suspended medical superintendent Catherine Mutinda, Dr James Kamau — the obstetrician gynaecologist who was supposed to be on duty — and the administrator Zadock Angahya.

Over time, Pumwani has frequently been highlighted in the media for all the wrong reasons. The hospital has been numerously accused of swapping dead babies with healthy living ones and later selling them.

But Monday’s incident brings to question the management and daily operations of the hospital, with many asking if there is an adequate budget provision for operations.

“The deaths that the governor was talking about accumulated over the weekend because bodies are collected three times a week, that is Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” said a doctor at the hospital.

Whereas only Aga Khan and Mater hospitals in Nairobi have mortuaries, hospitals are required to have holding rooms to temporarily keep the bodies.