- Kenya’s public healthcare sector is already grappling with a number of challenges: inadequate personnel, medication, and consumables.
- He noted that the ongoing strike will put the public health system in a hole which will take a very long time to come out of hence adversely affecting the public
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
The Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society (KOGS) now wants the ongoing doctors' strike resolved with immediate effect to save mothers and newborns from untold suffering.
KOGS in a statement on Friday expressed concern that the lives of countless women and unborn babies are at risk due to the delayed resolution of the doctor's strike.
KOGS is a professional organisation comprising Kenyan doctors specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology which strives for zero maternal mortality in Kenya through advocating for women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.
The society’s President Dr Kireki Omanwa said with communities relying on doctors for emergency care, the absence of medical professionals elevates the danger of forcing expectant mothers to deliver in unhygienic conditions and at the hands of untrained and unskilled birth attendants.
“We are looking at a catastrophe in the health sector. Failure to act swiftly could result in devastating consequences including preventable deaths and long-term health complications,” Omanwa said.
“We are manufacturing a disaster, we are going to have children who will have neurological problems, children who will have a very big problem in the future because of what is happening right now,” he warned.
He said the country already has an unacceptably high maternal mortality rate which currently stands at 355 deaths per 100,000 live births, while the neonatal mortality rate stands at 21 deaths per 1,000 live births which is above the global rate of deaths per 1,000.
According to the president, Kenya’s public healthcare sector is already grappling with several challenges: inadequate personnel, medication, and consumables.
He noted that the ongoing strike will put the public health system in a hole which will take a very long time to come out of hence adversely affecting the public.
“With doctors not working, these mothers will be forced to deliver in very unhygienic conditions, they will be taken care of by untrained or unskilled staff which unfortunately will lead to serious health issues with the babies and with the mothers themselves,” Omanwa cautioned.
The doctors' strike which started on Thursday last week entered its ninth day on Friday.
Efforts to end the strike have proven abortive after a series of meetings held between the government and the union ended without any binding agreement.
The statement by KOGs comes a day after the Kenyan Network of Cancer Organizations and Cancer Survivors Association of Kenya raised concern about the impact of the strike.
The lobby said the ongoing doctors' strike has led to significant delays in diagnosing new cancer cases and accessing treatment for cancer patients and survivors in Kenya.