The Ministry of Health has called on 26 counties to implement the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) technique in medical facilities in a bid to save premature babies’ lives.
According to Ministry officials, KMC technique would go a long in saving babies’ lives as the acute shortage of incubators in public hospitals is the leading cause of deaths as incubators have to be shared among babies.
So far, only 21 counties are implementing KMC in some of their facilities while the country only has 20 national KMC national trainers. A facility level, only 663 health workers have been trained to implement KMC while only 119 health workers have been trained to train fellow health workers on KMC.
A 2015 survey, which is the most recent released by the Ministry, shows that neonatal mortality has decreased significantly in Kenya in the last decade with current impressive trends in neonatal death rate standing at 22 neonatal deaths per 1000 live births from 35 in 1999 to 2003.
In a meeting TOday with the health officials and stakeholders ahead of World Prematurity Day celebrations on Friday, Head of New Born unit at the Ministry Dr Allan Govoga said that despite the improvement, much still needs to be done.