A surgical threatre recently set up at the Tseikuru Level 4 Hospital in Kitui county has helped reduce preventable deaths of infants that were often caused by delivery complications.
The hospital’s medical officer of health Geoffrey Muendo disclosed that hitherto 20 per cent of expectant mothers who required emergency operation during delivery lost their babies due to lack of a theatre at the hospital.
He spoke on Wednesday when he hosted a team of Kitui MCAs who were on an inspection tour of the hospital. The head of the MCAs’ delegation was Mwitika ward representative Nelson Musyoka.
“Before the theatre became operational, last December we had to refer mothers with obstructed labour to Mwingi Level 4 Hospital, which is about 100km away, for caesarean section delivery. In such cases, we ended up losing 20 per cent of the unborn children,” Muendo said.
He said the deaths usually occurred before the patients got to Mwingi.
“We used to refer up to 10 cases to Mwingi hospital for CS but due to the rough and bumpy state of the road we ended losing 20 per cent of the infants along the way,” Muendo said.
The theatre that was put up with financial assistance from Afya Halisi NGO in collaboration with the county was commissioned by Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu on December 17 last year.
Musyoka said his delegation was impressed that Tseikuru was among the best hospitals in Kitui county. He said not only did the team establish that the theatre had helped save lives but also that the facility had sufficient stock of drugs and it was generally clean.
Edited by Henry Makori