This archive report was first published on 6 September 2019.
On August 25, Mercyline Ongachi, a 20-year-old first-time mother, was rushed to Mama Lucy Hospital from a maternity clinic in Mukuru Kwa Rueben slums, experiencing premature labour.
Accompanied by a nurse and her two sisters in an ambulance, Mercyline arrived at the hospital at mid-morning, in labour. However, the level five hospital has been accused of refusing to offer any assistance to the young mother, who had to deliver the first baby alone despite crying for help.
According to Sandra Mwarania, a health rights campaigner at Amnesty International, which has taken up the case, Mercyline was admitted immediately but had to deliver the first baby alone after a health worker attended to another patient in the ward first.
Halfway through the second birth, the health worker moved in to help deliver the second baby, unaware that Mercyline was expecting twins. The worker allegedly placed the infants, born at six months, in a carton box instead of an incubator, with no attempts to save their lives.
Amnesty International has written to the Administration of Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital and national and county government offices to demand an investigation into the circumstances that led to the death of Mercyline's twins.
On September 6, 2019, the hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Musa Mohammed, was contacted for comment but declined to speak on the matter over the phone.
