Dear Friends,
When a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth, it is not just a personal tragedy, but proof of how shamefully little many countries have done to tackle maternal mortality-Daily Nation September 20, 2010.
The Ministry of Health and its partners including UNICEF have been conducting vigorous campaign to intensify already existing efforts and strategies to prevent maternal deaths in Kenya. For a long time, this was just part of a job for me; part of the reason why they pay me at the end of every month. Yes the statistics were grim and shocking but because as so many human beings I could not put a face to this tragedy i continued reciting the statistics in seminars and workshops and trainings and conferences...but they remained just that....statistics
But on Dec 11th 2010 these statistics became a face for me.My dear friend, a beautiful young woman that i have known since 1996 (14 years to be precise) lost her life while bringing forth life. Snatched away so soon.....never to smile and laugh with us....never to hold her husband's hand again......never to suckle the beautiful daughter that she carried for 9 months that she leaves behind to face this life without a mother's comforting and guiding hand.
This is why we are coming together to share Jackie's story so that we can all protect our wives, our mothers our sisters from this needless death. No woman should die giving life. Kenya’s maternal mortality now stands at an average of 450 per every 100,000 but the incidences are higher in remote provinces that record over 1000 deaths per every 100,000 pregnancies. This means 450 sisters, wives, mothers, best friends, colleagues, mentors...i can go on and on but you get my point.
It is easy to look at all these figures as high as they are as mere statistics but our focus changes when a sister, a mothers, a wife, an aunt becomes part of this statistic. Why should we wait until we lose a Jackie in our life for us to join hands in ensuring that women receive quality care from qualified personnel??
Why should another husband, friend, mother,sister, father go through what we did on 11th December 2010?? We can stand up and say no to maternal deaths.
The government plans to set up health centers within a 5-kilometre radius of every Kenyan settlement.Why? So that every woman of child bearing age has access to safe and skilled delivery. It is shocking then and unacceptable when a young woman heeding this call to deliver in a 'safe place' ends up dead in the same hospital. The reason why she went to the hospital in the first place is so that such a thing does not happen and at the very least everything humanly possible is done to save her life!!
So why did Maria Immaculata Hospital on Gitanga Road watch our friend bleed to death while all the time saying 'huyu ako na damu nyingi' translated to mean' this one has too much blood' ??? .How can a hospital ...any hospital worth its salt watch a husband desperately carry his wife shouting... screaming.... for any one to help him save this young life as he desperately watches her blood ebb and sock into his shirt??? How can a hospital that claims to provide quality care not do anything to prevent this unacceptable loss? The answer is none and we should not let the Maria Immaculatas of this country rob our women of their life as they give life.
The medical practitioners and dentists board in their website state that one of their functions is to ensure that medical practitioners and institutions are properly qualified, that they perform their services to patients with skill and diligence and that they observe at all times high moral and ethical standards. If any member of the board reads this please note that this hospital is not adhering to this code.
Maria Immaculata is not a safe hospital and no woman should deliver in this place. Am sure there are many others out there but the only way we can prevent these needless deaths is by speaking out. Change begins when you and I take action.
I know that the will of God is irreversible and that there are complications that arise in child birth.But whatever Maria Immaculata Hospital in Gitanga Road subjected us to was medical negligence.What did they do for Jackie in the two hours between the time she delivered her baby and the time that we lost her? Nothing. I am no doctor and I know that sometimes doctors lose their patients but they lose them trying. They do not lose them just watching them bleed to death. They do not lose them just watching as the bed they are lying on fills with blood as they watch. They do not lose them just like that. They try within what is humanly possible. Our outrage is that Maria Immaculata staff just watched our friend die THEY DID NOT DO ANYTHING.
It is said that if something goes wrong during pregnancy and child birth a health system should be there. So how do we explain the death of our dearest Jackie in a place where she was supposed to be 'safe' and with nothing done for her?
We have lost a wife, a sister, a best friend.... but no one has got to go through the same. Do not wait till you lose yours. This hospital is a NO GO ZONE and please spread the word because who knows how many lives you will help save just by forwarding this email???
If someone had shared what we learnt later from two different sources that Jackies was not an isolated case at Maria Immaculate am sure we would be writing a different story now.One woman underwent the same traumatic experience, but luckily for her the relatives rushed her to KNH just in time to save her life.......yet another had a C-Section last year where they stitched her back with the placenta intact, the placenta started rotting a week later.
Had we known what we know now, we could have saved our dear Jackie. That is why we are sharing this experience so that you do not go through what we did.
Am sure there are countless families and friends out there that have lost their loved ones but they do not have a voice. We can be there voice.
Spread the word and joint us in petitioning for the closure of Maria Immaculata Hospital or at the very least that no woman will go to this hospital to deliver her baby.
Regards,
Emily Mbelenga- Nutritionist and friend,
Esther Machocho-Best friend
Moses Ndwiga- Beloved Husband
