Health workers at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital have been exposed for chasing away a heavily pregnant expectant mother as they prepared for spotless wards ahead of a visit by the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga on Wednesday.
The cruel act of the nurses at a referral hospital where she had been referred, resulted into the mom, identified as Monica Wokobeire to lose her triplets. After she was sent away, she delivered the babies just outside the maternity ward.
Two of the babies died instantly upon delivery while the third died as it was being rushed to the nearby Nalufenya Children’s referral ward.
Peter Magoma, the husband to Wokobeire cannot forgive the nurses for the family’s tragedy that led to the death of their children who died most likely because of the delays in getting Wokobeire the needed attention.
Magoma, a resident of Magogo in Buzaya, Kamuli district, which is apparently the district represented by Speaker Kadaga in Parliament, expressed his utter shock and disappointment at the nurses of Jinja Referral Hospital.
“My wife couldn’t save the little ones because they were too much for
her to handle on her own after struggling to deliver them just adjacent to Jinja Referral Hospital maternity wards where they had come to safely deliver the babies,” Magoma said amid sobs.
Magoma argued that the hospital should have struck a balance between its mandate to save life and public relation exercise that the facility seems to have chosen over saving three young lives.
“My wife was referred here because the health workers at Nankandulo Health Centre said they couldn’t deal with the delivery of the triplets, unfortunately upon our arrival here we were chased away because the nurses were too busy preparing for the visit of Ms Kadaga. Instead, this resulted in the death of our babies” he added.
Jinja Regional Referral Hospital Director, Sophie Namasopo, when approached said, she didn’t take notice of the development as she was busy preparing for the visit of the Speaker of Parliament.
Kadaga’s visit
Unaware of the prevailing incident in the hospital, the visiting Kadaga challenged the government to expand the wards where the premature babies are given due care since the current one is too
small, badly lit and overstretched.
She was presiding over the launch of the Preterm Birth Initiative (PTBi), an US$2.5m study by Makerere University School of Public Health in collaboration with University of California, San Francisco, USA. The study is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, disclosed that about 226,000 babies are born preterm and 12,500 of them die before celebrating their 5th birthday due to preterm complications. Preterm Infants are those born before 37 weeks.
In a speech read on her behalf by Dr Jessica Nsubuga, the Assistant Commissioner for Child Health, the minister said some of the solutions to improve the survival and health of vulnerable preterm and low birth weight babies includes breastfeeding and properly taking care of the
umbilical cord.