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Mulago hospital short of incubators
A premature baby in an incubator. Mulago hospital does not have enough incubators to match the large nummber of premature births it receives, posing a threat to the babies’ lives. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA
What you need to know:
The national referral hospital is receiving more prematurely born babies who need incubators to survive. However, the hospital can accommodate only a few since the available incubators are not enough. This poses a threat to the babies’ lives.
Normally, women carry pregnancies for nine months but occasionally, one of their worst fears happens – the baby comes early in what is called premature birth.
Medical experts attribute premature births to gynaecological complications.
“Most women work hard and feed poorly while others have infections. Such conditions weaken pregnant mothers leading to premature births,” says Dr Jamiir Mugalu adding that premature babies are susceptible to illnesses if not put under a functional incubator.
Dr Mugalu, a consultant gynecologist at Mulago says they receive an average of between seven and 12 children born prematurely daily.
“The number of children increases by the day but the hospital has only 24 incubators and not all of them are functional.”
He says most of the babies are referred from other health facilities elsewhere, yet the cost of keeping the baby in the nursery is high.
Why incubators are important
Dr Magalu explains that children born prematurely lose heat and become very cold leading to breathing complications.
“This condition creates 80 per cent of death possibilities to a child,” Dr Mugalu adds.
According to health workers at the hospital, an incubator helps a baby to survive because premature deliveries have negative effect on the nurturing and development of children.
Dr Mugalu explains that premature children face problems because they are not ready for room temperatures; “Without functional incubators, the temperatures of children drop, children would have difficulty in breathing and feeding.”
“A good incubator helps babies survive hence reduced mortality rate. A baby of less than a kilogramme takes longer time in the incubator like a month or more but if the baby is bigger, then the time spent there is shorter,” he explains.
The shortage of incubators has since prompted sports agency proprietor, Andrew Bartley, to partner with Mulago hospital to reduce the challenge of keeping premature babies.
“I love children, especially infants, but I always feel touched on hearing that child death is high,” said Bartley, while handing over 30 incubators to Mulago.
Bartley, the chief executive of Sports Betting Africa (SBA), said since Mulago hosts the largest number of premature babies, he wants to give mothers hope that their children will be in safe hands while at the hospital, and it would control the burden of child mortality resulting in premature birth.
John Ejalu, the director of Corporate Affairs in the sports agency said, “This was a special challenge at the Special Care Unit for babies and we are committed as a company to plough back part of our profits generated from sales of Powerball game which is played from SBA outlets.”
