Kiambu County has denied claims by the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) that 136 newborn babies have lost their lives due to the ongoing health crisis in the county.
Speaking on NTV on Tuesday, October 7, County Health Officer Patrick Nyagah claimed that the doctors’ union was inflating the figures in a bid to cause panic and mislead members of the public.
“When we look at these alarmist statistics, we find that in every category they have doubled the figures. This is malice publishing figures that do not exist,” Nyagah said. “The figures we are getting today are the same as last year’s when there was no strike.”
Nyagah indicated that some of the deaths that were reported by KMPDU could not have been verified, noting that the majority were at the referral facilities where some of the cases recorded as newborn deaths were in fact infants who had been brought in dead.
He cautioned that without confirmation by the Ministry of Health, such statistics were readily manipulated.
Citing an example of Thika Level Five Hospital, Nyagah said while the union counted 36 newborn deaths in September, county data showed only 11.
According to him, there is a department in the Ministry of Health that is specifically tasked with recording and verifying health statistics based on three parameters believability, accuracy, and completeness.
Nyagah spoke hours after the KMPDU threatened to declare a national strike over what it described as negligence and the “callous insensitivity” of county leaders.
On Monday, October 6, in a strongly worded statement, the union accused the Council of Governors (CoG) of downplaying the reported infant deaths. CoG, through its chairperson and Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi, had earlier insisted that the Kiambu health system was still functional and doctors were at their workstations, a claim KMPDU disputed.
The union has since demanded a public apology from the CoG and an independent investigation into the alleged deaths.
It also requested President William Ruto to dissolve the Kiambu County government, citing gross mismanagement of the health sector.
