The theater room at Mother and Child Hospital in Makueni, Kenya, was a buzz of activity when Devex visited the facility in December. Scrubbed up in green and blue, the hospital’s surgical team — made up of junior doctors — went about setting up for a cesarean section that would be undertaken later that afternoon.
In 2013, the government of Kenya scrapped delivery fees in all public hospitals and health facilities to encourage pregnant women to deliver in these facilities. Ten years down the line, Mother and Child Hospital now carries out an average of 300 deliveries every month with a third of these being done through cesarean section, according to Jhpiego, a nonprofit health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.
“Deliveries can become complicated and once a delivery complicates, it will end up as a cesarean emergency,” Louise Nzilani, the nurse manager at the hospital said.
About the author
Anthony Langat
Anthony Langat is a Kenya-based Devex Contributing Reporter whose work centers on environment, climate change, health, and security. He was part of an International Consortium of Investigative Journalism’s multi-award winning 2015 investigation which unearthed the World Bank’s complacence in the evictions of indigenous people across the world. He has five years’ experience in development and investigative reporting and has been published by Al Jazeera, Mongabay, Us News & World Report, Equal Times, News Deeply, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Devex among others.