Nairobi County Governor Mike Sonko on Monday carried out a raid at Pumwani Maternity Hospital after a tip-off from members of the public exposing lapses in the facility's management.
The governor, in an impromptu visit to the facility, stumbled on 12 infant bodies that were in paper bags at a store while the attendants claimed only one newborn had died.
The bodies were wrapped together in polythene bags and stuffed in three boxes with a box carrying one body, another carton had six and while five bodies occupied the third hidden box.
Governor Sonko suspended the hospital's top management after finding the decomposing bodies hidden in the store.
Sonko made the visit to the facility riding on a bodaboda catching the management unawares.
He put the management at pains demanding to know why expectant mothers were left unattended at the maternity wing.
He found a gynaecologist attached to the facility absent from work and could not be reached on phone to explain why most mothers were losing their babies at the hospital.
The agitated County boss asked one of the staff at the facility to open one box after the other uncovering the boxes carrying the corpses.
After the raid, the governor alerted senior police officers to look into the matter.
“This is a police matter. You can’t lose 12 babies in a day,” held Governor Sonko.
While at the hospital, he played a clip sent to his phone by a mother who had lost her child at Pumwani.
The video showed a man carrying similar cartons from the wards. The management confirmed that the man captured in the video clip was one of the workers attending to expectant mothers.
"I want to categorically state that human life must be respected no matter the case. Stern action will be taken against anyone found to be sabotaging the good services offered to our mothers and sisters who come to deliver in this facility,” Sonko wrote on his social media page.
