Mother blamed for tragedy during childbirth

Nyeri County Executive for Health Charles Githinji displays a summary reportthat absolved  Nyeri Provincial General Hospital staff from blame for the death of an infant in mid January.  [PHOTO: MOSE SAMMY/STANDARD]

By LYDIAH NYAWIRA and MOHAMMED DOYO

Nyeri, Kenya: A mother has been blamed for the death of her infant who plunged to the floor during labour at the Nyeri Provincial Hospital labour ward early this year.

Reports by the Nyeri county government and the national government on the death of the infant on January 16 have largely blamed the mother’s conduct for the incident and recommended that all hospital staff be absolved of negligence.

Charity Wanjiku and her husband Peter Ndigirigi had said that the baby died after Wanjiku was left unattended by nurses on duty in the labour ward.

Couple’s claim

The couple had claimed that they were ignored by the nurses, whom they said were asleep and had failed to respond to her cries for help during labour.

However, Nyeri County Executive for Health Services Charles Githinji said the two teams consisting of health professionals – one from the national government and the other from the county government – had been constituted to investigate the incident.

“The teams carried out independent investigations and prepared both comprehensive and summary reports after interviewing the family, hospital staff and witnesses who were patients in the ward at the time,” Dr Githinji said.

According to the findings, the mother persistently climbed down from the hospital bed whenever the labour pains came, contrary to the strict advice from the attending nurse.

The report further said Wanjiku assumed a wrong position for delivery despite having experienced delivery in 2004.

Wanjiku alerted the nurse about the baby’s coming just as it was coming through the birth canal.

She was blamed for not making any attempts to cushion the baby from falling to the floor.

The reports also noted that at the time of the incident, the labour ward had four nurses on night duty and two doctors who were reviewing other patients with emergency situations.

Githinji said accusations that nurses were asleep or ignoring the pleas of women in labour were false as the ward was extremely busy, with 18 admissions that night.

“On the fateful night, the labour ward was very busy with eight new admissions, 13 deliveries and two emergencies around the same time of the incident,” Githinji explained.

He said that the report had statements from several witnesses who had corroborated the accounts by nurses that they had instructed Wanjiku strictly to remain in bed.

Githinji said both reports had concluded that there was very little the nurses could have done under the circumstances to prevent the baby’s death.