The Kiambu Chief Officer of Health Services, Dr Patrick Nyagah, has disputed a report by the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) indicating that up to 136 newborns have died in four months of an ongoing doctors’ strike, claiming the number of mortalities is much lower than claimed.
“Beyond any doubt, we have not had 136 babies dying in Kiambu in recent months,” said Dr Nyagah in an interview responding to a story published in the Daily Nation .
Data by Kiambu County government between May and August shows that Kiambu Level 5 hospital recorded 53 neonatal deaths, indicating a disparity of 15 mortalities compared to the report by KMPDU that showed 68 infant deaths in the period. The county government, however, did not share by the time of going to press mortality data of the Thika Level 5 hospital, which, as per the KMPDU data, recorded 68 deaths in five months to September.
Dr Nyagah termed the death trend ‘normal’, arguing that it is not influenced by the doctors’ strike. He said the death data includes patients (babies) who came from other healthy centers in the county already in critical condition, and who eventually lost their lives at the hospital. He said the data also includes babies who were born dead, and those who were born pre-term (before 21 weeks) and could not survive.
“When you combine all those critical issues, you get the data that you have. It is not ethical to then come and lump all this data, coming from a system that cares about patients, and say this is a system that kills patients,” said Dr Nyagah.
“If, for example, we had 136 deaths in a month, in all our 60 wards, we would be having 20 or 30 deaths in a month. That will mean funerals everywhere, like we used to have during Covid-19 period. We would be having a funeral today, a funeral tomorrow, a funeral thereafter. Why are we not getting citizens talking of funerals everywhere, after patients have come to our hospitals? Where did we take the bodies of those who died? Where did we bury them? Who were the relatives?” paused Dr Nyagah.
The chief officer also addressed allegations that the deaths were due to neonatal sepsis or hospital-acquired pneumonia stemming from poor hygiene. Dr Nyagah questioned how doctors who have been away from the hospital for three months could establish a diagnosis like hospital-acquired pneumonia, which requires a rigorous surveillance system of sampling and correlation.
He also refuted claims that the hospitals were running solely on interns, stating that the county had hired replacements for doctors and that approximately 90 striking doctors have returned to work.
“In terms of operations, these hospitals are running fully, 24 hours. We have no health crisis. We have hired doctors to take up duties for the ones who have stayed away. We have requested our doctors who want to come back to come back, and approximately 90 of them have come back. We are infusing them back to work, and we have put up advertisements to hire more, because we are expanding the hospital systems,” said Dr Nyaga.
The striking medical practitioners have complained about shortage of personnel, which Dr Nyagah said was being addressed progressively.
“The process of hiring in the public sector is protracted, requiring advertisements. These doctors who had been jobless as the national government hadn't been employing them for several years were in the tail end of the onboarding process when the strike was called. Many of these specialists were not hired as such but were trained by the county, which regularly sponsors between 40 and 60 doctors to become specialists, with 39 currently in medical school,” he said.
MONTH
KMPDU data
County management data
January
11
12
February
15
15
March
16
14
April
11
10
May
18
16
June
18
14
July
14
9
August
18
14
September
14
MONTH
KMPDU DATA
County management data
May
6
June
9
July
7
August
11
September
35
