The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB) will Tuesday morning kick off investigations at Kiambu Level Five Hospital following the deaths of 60 infants at the health centre in two months.
Speaking to the Business Daily on Monday, Board Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yumbya said that they had decided to send a team to the hospital to do a full audit of the infant deaths.
He said the KMPDB had abandoned earlier plans to have the hospital's management explain the deaths through a comprehensive report on the allegations raised.
Today KMPDB is expected to review patient files of all the infants who passed away between December 2018 and January 2019 and submit findings to the Cabinet Secretary for Health for further action.
Yesterday the county government of Kiambu defended the hospital saying that the deaths were outside its parameters.
County Health Executive Mary Kamau, Kiambu County said that 35 babies were pre-term with little chances of survival.
“In the two months of December 2018 and January 2019, Kiambu hospital conducted 1,703 deliveries. We had a total of 60 neonatal deaths out of which 35 were pre-term babies weighing less than 1.5 kilograms,” said Ms Kamau.
“About 50 percent of the pre-term cases were referrals from neighbouring private, faith-based and other public facilities. The survival rate for severe pre-term babies is very low worldwide."
The hospital superintendent Dr Jesse Ngugi, who will liaise with the KMPDB, also said that the hospital had not been negligent in any of the reported cases.
“The deaths can be explained because we do a mortality and morbidity audit for every death in the newborn unit. That is to make sure we have continuous improvement in the quality of care we provide to patients,” Dr Ngugi said.
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