Over 2,225 babies die annually at Kawempe Women Hospital

The Minister of State for Primary Health Care, Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu has revealed that over 86 mothers and 2,225 babies die in a single year Kawempe Women Specialised Hospital.

The remarks follow social media pictures showing newly born babies lying in plastic chairs due to the absence of beds at Kawempe Hospital. This prompted the Parliamentary Health committee to summon Kaducu to explain the state of affairs at the specialised hospital.

While meeting the Members of Parliament this week, Kaducu read them a report which left all MPs in a shock to hear that a multi-billion health facility has such a high mortality rate.

She said in one year, (2018) over 8,370 new borne babies were delivered,1790 of these were pre-matures whereas 2,225 babies died due to numerous reasons.

“As of July 2018 and June 2019, the hospital data shows that the hospital has admitted over 8,370 new borne babies in the special care unit and out of these, 1,790 constituting 21 per cent were born before arrival that means they were born outside the institution,” said Kaducu.

MPs asked her why a specialised hospital has such a number and why babies were put in plastic chairs.

She replied that the hospital has no ambulance, inadequate number of health staff, insufficient space for the newborn babies and lack of funds to procure drugs to manage high blood pressure for pregnant mothers and inadequate basic equipment in the Intensive Care Unit.

“Most parental deaths come as unregulated referral where expectant mothers refer themselves to the specialised hospital, leaving the lower health facilities in preference for huge facilities,” she said.

Kawempe General Hospital, famously known as Kawempe Specialised National Referral Hospital was built by the government between 2014 and 2016 on a loan of Shs41billion from the African Development Bank and the Nigeria Trust Fund.

It’s construction was aimed at decongesting Mulago National Referral Hospital.