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Nairobi, Kenya: Priscilla Makunga, 27, from Ofafa Jericho in Nairobi County is a happy mother of one new born child.
This is after she got attended to at the newly refurbished New Born Unit at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) on December 21. She delivered her son at the Pumwani Maternity Hospital but had to be rushed to KNH after her child developed complications immediately after birth.
Another contented mother at this revamped facility is Lekishua Zacharia, 24, mother of two tiny twins. She came from Narok County in Mrwadi village and having given birth to low weight babies, she had to be referred to KNH.
Lekishua and Priscilla can now breathe easy as their babies are in safe hands and they are enjoying the clean environment and good service at the unit.
“This refurbishment and equipment donations have reduced death of new born babies from 40 per cent to 37 and even sometimes 32 per cent,” said Florence Ogongo, assistant chief nurse in charge of the unit.
The renovations and equipment donations were given by Safaricom Foundation in February last year. The firm gave Sh50 million as part of the Kenya@50 legacy projects at a launch officiated by First Lady Margaret Kenyatta.
Equipment donated included an infant ventilator, three resuscitators, four syringe pumps, three nasal continuous positive airway pressure machines, one blood gas analyser and ultra sound machine, three monitors, eight pedal action bins, computerised heaters, 10 paper towel dispensers and soap dish dispensers.
Signage of different offices and units, hanging of wall pictures, repainting the unit’s walls and corridors, tiling and ceiling was also done.
“We applaud our donor for what they did even if we still have few incubators. This is because the number of admissions are high ranging from an average of 150 to 160 per day and admitting 320 babies per month with about 50 per cent being premature babies,” Ogongo said.
According to Ogongo, the unit is bee-hive of activity since they receive referrals from both private and public hospitals each day and the unit serves up to 120 babies with complications.
“Sometimes, a child in need of critical care may need to use at least four machines - a monitor, syringe pump, resuscitator and ventilator yet there are other babies needing the same equipment. This makes our work rather challenging,” she said.
Further, the incubators they have are old and few forcing the medics to place three to four babies in one incubator.
“Incubators cost between Sh2.5 million to Sh3 million and we require at least 25 units,” she said.
More equipment still needed are the photo-therapy machines which help prevent jaundice in new born babies. One such machine costs about Sh250,000.
Ogongo is, however, grateful that they no longer have to rely on coil heaters after a centralised heating system was installed. Other equipment that the unit got were water heaters, kitchen and lab refurbishment as well as covering of live power cables that were naked.
The unit is set to benefit from an additional Sh6 million with Safaricom Foundation saying this will be in the form of essential equipment such as baby cots.
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