Daisy Jebet, 26, was a hardworking, jovial woman before she died prematurely from post-delivery complications at the Baringo County Referral Hospital in Kabarnet on July 23.
Jebet's case is one among 12 reported deaths of young children and their mothers soon before or after giving birth in the hospital since the nurses' strike started on June 4, although the hospital denies as many have died.
Hundreds of mourners gathered for her burial at her marital Kapropita home in Baringo Central subcounty on July 29.
During the ceremony, her cousin Solomon Boit said he received a call from Jebet on the evening of July 22, telling her that she was experiencing some unusual watery discharge and abdominal pain.
"I was then in Kabarnet town. I rushed to pick her in the house with my vehicle and rushed to the nearby referral hospital in Kabarnet, where the nurses said she was in labour and that she was due to deliver," he said.
Boit said he left for his Eldoret home after being assured by the nurses on duty that everything was in control and well taken care of.
"I was shocked the following day to receive a call and told she had succumbed to unascertained complications soon after a normal delivery," he said.
He said upon making further inquiries from the hospital, the family was told there were some unnoticed internal rapture that led to excessive bleeding, leading to her death.
Her husband, Patrick, was grief-stricken and couldn't manage to speak to the media.
Jebet has left behind her week-old bouncing baby boy Joash Koech under the care of his father, Patrick. The family is appealing to well-wishers to help the single parent raise the child.
MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE?
The nurses strike went on strike to demand salary and allowance increases and promotions, but their pleas have gone unheeded as the country heads to the general election.
The referral hospital has allegedly resorted to recruiting students from the Kenya Medical Training College and part-time inexperienced nurses to carry out deliveries and simple surgeries amid the countrywide nurses’ strike.
The hospital normally handles critical cases of patients referred from the six subcounties: Baringo North, South and Central, Tiaty, Mogotio and Eldama-Ravine.
A nurse attached to the facility said 93 nurses serving various departments, including theatre, renal unit and outpatient, have joined the ongoing nationwide strike.
Speaking to the Star on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, he said despite the staff shortage, the management is not ready to suspend maternity services in the hospital or it will lose the government remittance of Sh2,500 per delivery.
The source said in search of better health services, some patients and expectant women have resorted to spending extra money travelling several kilometres to the private Catholic Mercy Hospital in Eldama-Ravine.
"Sometimes people even prefer going to the Nakuru General Hospital or the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH)-Eldoret," said another nurse who declined to be named for fear of victimisation.
He said the worsening situation in the hospital has seen patients in the wards and the maternity wing being checked and served once a day, rather than the normal routine by the nurses.
“Due to negligence and inexperienced servants hired in the facility, sometimes a patient who used to receive drugs six times a day is being served only once or twice. This causes resistance to drugs, especially to those patients under antibiotics, posing a great danger to their lives,” the nurse said.
He added that even babies under five are hardly injected with vaccination drugs, exposing them to the risk of contracting diseases like measles, pneumonia and polio.
“Don’t be cheated that things are going on well. Currently in these county public hospitals amid the nurses strike, innocent people are losing their lives due to poverty and lack of understanding,” the medic said.
He said due to the shortage of nurses, "it has become even better for patients to seek the services of herbalists and midwives back home rather than get served by inexperienced ‘nurses’ in Kabarnet hospital, which seems to have been turned into a 'death trap'."
SUBSTITUTE NURSES 'QUALIFIED'
The hospital medical superintendent, Dr Stephen Kalya, said it was unfortunate Jebet died, "but the child is strong and healthy".
The medical superintendent said various cases happen in the hospital, whether positive or negative, and patients can either appreciate or criticise.
He said since the nurses’ strike started in early June, the hospital decided to hire part-time qualified batch of nurses to carry out up to 60 per cent of health operations in the facility.
Dr Kalya disputed claims there were more than 10 reported cases since the nurses strike began. Instead, he said there was a stillbirth case where a woman delivered prematurely and lost the child a week ago.
"We cannot deny that the nurses’ strike has destabilised services in our hospital, but it is not to the magnitude that is being rumoured outside there," he said.
He said after the nurses’ strike began, they opted against shutting down some demanding sections, including maternity, in the interest of low-income patients.
"The maternity services are offered in the public facilities countrywide for free, but can you imagine telling a poor, expectant women to spend a whopping Sh100,000 to go and deliver in a private hospital in Eldama-Ravine, Eldoret or Nakuru?" Dr Kalya asked.
He said five to 10 mothers deliver daily in the facility, urging the public to stop its criticism.
"A government's responsibility always starts and stops with an individual," he said.
Speaking while inspecting renovations on September 14 last year, Governor Benjamin Cheboi said the county has been paying health workers on time and promoting them.
“We have also been training staff locally and internationally to equip them with the skills needed to operate equipment," he said.
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