MSF hospitals overstretched as nurses’ strike bites

Health workers at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) facility in Likoni, Mombasa County. Medical charity MSF says its health facilities in Kenya are overstretched because of the nurses' strike. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The charity organisation works in the counties Homa Bay, Nairobi, Mombasa, Embu and Dadaab Refugee Camp.
  • He said in there were 247 deliveries, including 51 caesarean sections last week at the facility.

Some health facilities in the country run by medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), or MSF, are overstretched due to the current crises in health.

The organisation says the ongoing nurses’ strike, which followed the 100-day doctors’ strike, and now the cholera outbreak should push the government to restore crucial health services across the country.

MSF works in Homa Bay, Nairobi, Mombasa and Embu counties and at the Dadaab refugee camp.

“It is crucial that all parties work on a solution to restore access to emergency and life-saving care, and referral services,” said the MSF head of mission in Kenya, Abubakr Bashir Bakri, in a statement on Wednesday.

CHOLERA

Mr Bakri said the response to the cholera outbreak has also suffered as there are no nurses working in nearly all public facilities.

The Health ministry has formed a national task force to handle cholera cases in a raft of measures aimed at containing the infectious disease that has affected more than 300 people since May.

The government has also directed counties to ban food hawking and inspect all hotels in 21 days and cancelled the medical certificates of all food handlers.

Thousands of patients have been suffering following the nurses’ strike, which entered its sixth week last Saturday.

Mr Bakri said that during the doctors’ strike, MSF covered the high costs of intensive care in private facilities for severely ill patients.

DELIVERIES

“This is unacceptable, life-saving services need to be reinstated as a matter of urgency,” the official said.

The organisation noted that the number of women giving birth at the Mrima Health Centre in Likoni, Mombasa County, had tripled since the first strike. MSF supports sexual and reproductive health services at the facility.

He said there were 247 deliveries, including 51 caesarean sections, last week at the facility.

Mr Bakri said important outpatient services, such as vaccinations and postnatal and antenatal check-ups, have had to be stopped, while emergency referrals for mothers and babies who need specialised care are now close to impossible due to the closure of other hospitals in the area.

“With thousands cut off, we are urging that lifesaving activities are maintained to alleviate the suffering of those most in need,” he said.