Hospitals on the spot over deaths

Private hospitals are under attack from social media users over recent reports of ‘healthy’ women dying during childbirth.

Never before has so much anger been directed at private hospitals in Kenya than in recent weeks following a story of how Ms Jackyline Clarice Mwakina died during childbirth as medical personnel watched helplessly.

In January, the Nation told of Ms Mwakima’s death and Ms Hellen Njeri Kang’ethe who almost shared a similar fate because the hospital’s machine that is used to clean the uterus after a miscarriage was not working.

Following the stories, many readers called our newsroom to express their outrage at the hospitals. The enraged callers wondered how a healthy woman can die while giving birth in a modern hospital.

Mr Moses Ndwiga, who lost his wife Jackie, in childbirth, pointed us towards his web page of Wazua where he has since initiated a campaign — Up Against Maternal Deaths.

Postings on the page indicate, though without evidence, that childbirth deaths in modern hospitals in Kenya are many and painful.

One such posting by Famooz reads: “Can you believe that in one of the leading hospitals, an intern had to step in to do a Caesarean Section because a consultant was held up in another hospital. And that was not all, the intern had to wait for the consultant to come and stitch her up.”

A Caesarean section is a surgical operation made through a woman’s abdomen to deliver a baby or babies when vaginal delivery threatens the woman’s life or that of the unborn child. This procedure can also be performed at the choice of the expectant mother.

What Kenyans may not know is that the danger women giving birth in modern hospitals face has been documented since 1999 by the government.

The government regularly carries out an audit of the quality of maternity services in public, private and faith-based medical facilities with the next such survey to be released in the next two weeks.

Sources indicate the next Kenya Service Provision Assessment survey (KSPA) shows stagnating or deteriorating quality of maternity services.

Revelations in the current KSPA are indicative of why women die during childbirth even in private hospitals.

Debate in the site Wazua over maternal deaths in private hospitals indicates the problem may be bigger than generally thought.

Last week Spanner made this posting on website: “These cases have become too many, everyone knows someone who has gone through this... something needs to be done.”

In Ms Kang’ethe’s case, the doctors say the uterus cleaning machine, called manual vacuum aspirator, was not working.

The government audit says only about a third of private hospitals offering maternity services have this essential equipment.

Another posting by Wendz says in part: “In one of the situations, the gynaecologist even admitted (though not directly) that she didn’t really know what to do next... they had to bring in another gynaecologist in the middle of treatment.”

This is a similar case with Ms Mwakina who lost her life in December while attendants watched helplessly.