Nurse Florence Ogongo observing a premature baby at the newborn unit in Kenyatta National Hospital on November 12,2017. [PHOTO/the-star.co.ke]
Some 50 per cent of births that take place at the Kenyatta National Hospital's new born unit are premature.
According to the unit's assistant nurse Florence Ogongo, 40 per cent of the babies are referred from hospitals in Nairobi and its environs, while the other 10 per cent are from other counties.
Every month, over 500 babies are born at Kenyatta National Hospital.
“Because we are a national referral hospital we can not turn away babies. These are our future leaders and we must do everything to save them,” Ogongo said in an interview as reported by the Star.
With the overwhelming numbers, the facility only has 10 ten incubators to take care for these newly-borns whose survival rates are very critical.
“We use to have 20 incubators but 10 of them broke down. The cost of repairing them is also quite expensive.
"In such scenarios babies have to share an incubator and the risk of infection is also very high,” Ogongo added.
"These babies need to be handled with utmost care. They require a lot of warmth. Once they are stable we remove from the incubator and ask the mother to conduct a method called Kangaroo mother care," Ogongo further commented.