This archive report was first published on 12 July 2019.
Published on July 12, 2019, a report by the Nation highlighted the tragic deaths of eleven babies at Kenyatta National Hospital.
The babies died due to a drug-resistant bacterium known as Klebsiella, which was compounded by the poor state of the ward.
According to the report, nurses had to improvise feeding tubes and syringes, causing bruises and bleeding in the babies' noses and mouths.
Mothers still express milk for the neonates every three hours, which is fed to the babies through a nasogastric tube that can either go through the nose or mouth.
The milk is then drawn into a syringe and injected into the tube in drops, relying on gravity to take it down the babies' throats.
However, reports indicate that the tubes are out of stock, forcing nurses to use syringes and other tubes used to aspirate for feeding the babies.
Research shows that these tubes are inappropriate and hurt the newborn babies.
The Nation also indicated that up to three children share a cot, putting them at risk of infecting each other with a bacterium like Klebsiella.
Medics state that Klebsiella is responsible for a significant proportion of hospital-acquired infections, especially in neonates.
