Economy

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

pumwani

Patients at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi. Nearly 90 per cent of both public and private healthcare facilities in Kenya do not comply with key patient safety standards, a study shows. FILE

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.”

Says Ms Aura: “While the President of Kenya did issue a directive for the implementation of the Free Maternal Delivery Programme, human and material resources in many public hospitals have remained inadequate and thus presents an impediment to the project’s sustainability.”

In citing resources, Fida has hit the nail on the head, for it is ironic that the President could promise Kenyan mothers free maternal care, only to fail them miserably as is it is increasingly becoming evident.

It is worth quoting Mr Kenyatta when he made his pledge to Kenyan women in his heady Madaraka Day speech: “My government has made adequate budgetary arrangements to enable all pregnant mothers to access free maternal services in all public facilities with effect from June 1, 2013.”

Like the laptops for Standard One pupils’ programme that stands on shaky ground and the one-million-job promise that has turned into a nightmare with civil servants facing mass layoffs, the free maternity care programme is just one of the Jubilee promises that appears to be standing on quicksand.

The difference with laptops and jobs is that while children can learn without the former and another job is always possible, gambling with mothers’ lives undermines the very foundation of life — for mothers bear children and children are guarantors of the nation’s future.

Although the President said — correctly — that the waiver would help expectant mothers access maternal care at no cost and help reduce maternal deaths, this is far from being realised.

Mothers, who previously could not meet maternity charges, have been going to hospitals in droves, only to be confronted with a hostile environment of overstretched medical facilities and overworked doctors and nurses.

Fida is now demanding that it allocates 15 per cent of its total budget to health instead of the current six per cent to save women’s lives.

In making the demand, Fida is doing no more that it ought, given that it is more than 13 years since Kenya signed into the Abuja Declaration committing it to allocate at least 15 per cent of its annual budget to health.

While it may be unfair to hold the Jubilee administration responsible for Kenya’s declining state of health, and especially that of mothers and children, given that Mr Kenyatta’s predecessor Mwai Kibaki did precious little to increase the health budget, Fida’s call to the government to increase the health budget is urgent.

Prenatal deaths

Fida also wants the government to ensure adequate staffing of motivated medical professionals in all public hospitals to deliver quality maternal services devoid of negligence and disrespect and to enact law on maternal and newborn and child health.

The legislation, it says, will establish maternal and perinatal (i.e. around the time of birth) death surveillance and response to eliminate preventable maternal and perinatal deaths.

Will the government heed Fida’s call and walk on the path of realising universal healthcare that ensures equity in access to quality and affordable health not just for Kenyans but for mothers especially?

Twitter: @DorothyKweyu