In 2017, 526,999 deliveries were recorded in public facilities nationwide, down from 1,006,316 the previous year—reflecting the negative effects of the prolonged industrial actions that left many women without medical attention during critical hours of delivery.
Although some of the women may have delivered their babies in private hospitals, many others who could not afford expensive services in such facilities opted for risky home deliveries—effectively reversing the gains of nationwide campaigns for safe births.
The number of hospital deliveries fell sharply in 2017 as expectant women snubbed public health facilities crippled by back-to-back nurses and doctors’ strikes, new data by the Health Ministry showed.
In 2017, 526,999 deliveries were recorded in public facilities nationwide, down from 1,006,316 the previous year—reflecting the negative effects of the prolonged industrial actions that left many women without medical attention during critical hours of delivery.
Although some of the women may have delivered their babies in private hospitals, many others who could not afford expensive services in such facilities opted for risky home deliveries—effectively reversing the gains of nationwide campaigns for safe births.
“Last year we had the doctors strike and later the nurses strike, and this is the main reason why deliveries in public health institutions went down. Most of the deliveries are carried out by midwives and nurses and doctors only come in when complications arise. Nurses being on strike meant that there were minimal people going to hospitals for delivery services,” said Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu.
“Most deliveries we believe happened in private institutions, missionary hospitals and at home. But after the strike people have been flooding public hospitals. Before the strike 60 per cent of women were giving birth in hospitals up from 40 per cent, hopefully with services now back to normal we can keep the numbers going up again,” said Mr Mailu.
Nairobi County had the widest gap in the number of deliveries in the last two recent years after mothers visiting public health facilities to deliver dropped by 59,233 to record 61,108 deliveries last year.
Kiambu County had the second biggest fall of 27,309 from 62,476 deliveries recorded in 2016. Deliveries in Nakuru County also went down by half to 22,995.
Oddly, counties with the biggest gap in deliveries had the most maternity health fund allocation with Nairobi taking the lion’s share of Sh281 million. Kiambu and Nakuru counties received Sh270 million and 217 million, respectively. About Sh4.1 billion was disbursed to counties for the free maternity programme in the 2016/2017 financial year. The government’s allocation to free maternal health care in the current financial year was Sh4.3 billion, representing only 7.8 per cent of the allocation to the health sector.
Attendance of Antenatal Clinic (ANC)—which is critical in helping in the physical and mental preparation of women before child birth—was also hard hit in 2017, dropping 49 per cent to 346,704 compared to the previous year.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends two ANC visits in the first two trimesters and two more during the last three months.
The effects of unsafe births was evident in 2017 with data showing that maternal deaths of young women aged between 10 to 19 increased by 7 per cent to 827 compared to the previous year. On the brighter side, maternal deaths of adults aged 20 years and above fell by 24 per cent to 767.
Meru County had the highest adolescent maternal deaths after 122 girls died at birth or due to pregnancy related complications despite being among the top recipients of funds (Sh115 million) for the free maternity programme.
In Tana River, Kwale and Uasin Gishu counties 75, 61 and 56 adolescents died in 2017 respectively, owing to issues related to pregnancies.
Studies show that young girls are twice more likely to die from childbirth than women in their 20s. The rate of pregnancy among teenagers, defined by World Health Organisation (WHO) as persons between the ages of 13-19, in Kenya is currently at 14.7 per cent, according to the 2014 Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS).
The latest data by the Health ministry are in step with a report from District Health Information Systems in October which showed that the number of mothers who have died in childbirth doubled to 857 in the first half of 2017. Comparatively, in the previous year, 413 women had died during the period under review.
The ministry, however, was able to capture only 10 per cent of such deaths as many others go unrecorded, as public health facilities remained closed down.
The Jubilee government introduced free maternity services in June 2013.
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