Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has raised alarm over the increasing number of maternal deaths in the country, attributing most of the cases to medical negligence in hospitals.
While addressing the Nairobi meeting and during the launch of Kenya’s Quality of Care Health Facility Assessment Reports and the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition Investment Case, Duale was concerned about the needless of the mothers who lose their lives during childbirth.
He stated that a very recent Ministry of Health investigation revealed extremely disturbing data – locally, only in one county, 18 mothers had died within just a three-month period, and it was majorly the healthcare workers’ negligence that was the cause of these deaths.
Duale reacted to health workers and county leaders who fail in their duties with an ultimatum that the government will be unrelenting in its pursuit of taking decisive action against the offenders among them.
“Negligence in our health facilities is something that we shall not sit back and watch. Any health worker who through negligence leads to the death of a mother, I assure you, he or she will have their license revoked,” Duale warned.
Indeed, the government will ensure that adequate medical care is provided to expectant mothers all over the counties, he stressed and called for the highest standard of accountability in the health sector as a sure way of putting an end to avoidable maternal deaths.
