Pumwani Maternity Infant Deaths: BY WANYEKI KAGO: Mike Mbuvi Sonko is a political stunt master. He compensates the vacuousness between his ears with clownishness, stuntsmanship and outright buffoonery.
While the story of the 12 dead infants uncouthly stashed in a carton like dead vermin at Pumwani Maternity Hospital is sad, callous and heart wrenching, the governor did well in parading his ineptitude and the gross incompetence of his administration for all to see.
From whatever angle we look at the issue the buck stops at City Hall. I agree with KTN’s Dr. Mercy Korir that the whole saga is a governance issue. The doctors and nurses at Pumwani work with the facilities and equipment at their disposal.
If they have no cold room or least of all medical disposal bags, they can be forgiven for improvising with whatever they can lay their hands on. Cartons naturally come in handy, just as they come in handy at our homes and work places in disposing garbage. That is how low we have sank as a country.
Why should a dead infant be kept for three days in a holding room waiting to be taken to City Mortuary less than 10km away? But then don’t we wait for garbage to rot, breed vermin and stink to high heaven at Marikiti Market before we can cart it away to Dandora, 10km away to “complete the journey?” Why Are We So Blest?
The enduring question that should make us even more mad and concerned is why should infants be dying like poisoned rats at Pumwani Maternity Hospital. 12 in three days, unless Pumwani is an illegal abortion centre, are one too many not to prick any right thinking person’s conscience. It is any mother’s joy to hold her newborn alive and healthy while being discharged from any Maternity hospital. That’s why we refer to newborns as “bundles of joy.”
It is unimaginable to think of the trauma the mothers related to the dead infants are going through, going by the public anger.
But then when the Nairobi Merino sheep were bleating themselves hoarse prior to and on 8/8/2017 and out of hubris could hear none other than the stuntman with the refrains: “Sonko tu ndiye anaweza toa Kidero!” “Si ushawi, ni maobi,” what were they expecting?See your lives.