A Ugandan mother has been left distraught after one of the twins she was giving birth to died during labour.
The incident happened in Hoima Referral Hospital, which serves six Uganda districts: Masindi, Hoima, Kibale, Kiboga, Buliisa and Mubende. Each of these districts refers patients to Hoima Hospital because the hospital is in the centre and has facilities that other health centres do not.
The newborn’s death happened around midnight (July 6). The doctors who were supposed to be on the nightshift had absented themselves from duty. One had gone to Kibale to visit his parents and another had gone to Kiboga to attend to patients in his small clinic.
Being a weekend, the medical supretendant had also gone away so supervision was not evident. This brought anarchy and turmoil in the hospital because man power was scarse yet referral cases were plenty.
Atwine, the twin’s mother, lives in Masindi and went to Hoima expecting better services. She delivered her first baby properly but the nurse was busy giving assistance to two others in the labour suite and so she failed to push the next one out. It was a catastrophic day for the family. They came to realize that the rate of maternal neonatal is high in this referral hospital.
”We were three in the labour suite but being attended to by one nurse, and no assistance of a medical doctor because they had absconded from duty that night. The midwife was the one in charge that particular night. She was doing everything: rolling dead bodies to the mortuary, admitting pregnant mothers, helping those in the labour ward and those in the suite, which was a challenge to the patients,” says Atwine.
On hearing that his second son had died, Jonathan became furious with the midwife but nothing could be reversed. He said: “This is not supposed to be a refferal hospital because the administration lacks sufficient monitoring of its workers and impunity is high amoung the workers, leading to high maternal mortality rates in the hospltal.”
The hospital has a lot of challenges. At times the ambulance is not there to collect refered cases and when it is paitents are asked to buy fuel for it, which some cannot afford.
HIV testing is evident in the hospital but at times Spetrine is not available there. Voluntary HIV counselling is also poor because of the impunity open to health workers. This lack of professional ethics has led many to fear testing as some of the doctors and nurses end up stigmatizing HIV positive people, secretly discussing their cases, which often becomes common knowledge.
Such characteristics defames the hospital’s name leading many in the region to prefer using traditional birth attendants. This has worsened the rate of maternal mortality. This is a challenge to the region because no precautions are taken to these impunitive people yet they inflict pain to families of people.
