Mombasa diary | St Luke's, the small hospital with a big heart

The hospital serves a catchment area of 300,000 people and treats all illnesses as well as having a functional maternity wing. The maternity wing provides mothers with antenatal care, servicing 3,500 women in an average year. However, only 30% of these women choose to give birth in a hospital setting, the remainder using the services of a traditional birth attendant, and some going through the frightening experience on their own.

Dr Mugo explains the reason for this low percentage of hospital births, which has in fact has doubled the previous year’s figures.

“The first problem is one related to culture. Women in the community think that if you have to go to hospital to have your baby you are not a strong woman. A strong woman can give birth on her own.

“Secondly, the hospital is in a remote area and is not serviced by the matatu – local public transport. Women attending the hospital have to walk for hours to reach the hospital, and if labour comes in the night then it is often impossible to get to the hospital at all.”

Like the majority of hospitals servicing the poor in Kenya, St Luke’s lacks basic equipment that a hospital requires to keep it running. They do not even have a defibulator or a nebuliser. Dr Mugo explains of the pain and frustration he feels when despite the knowledge he has to save a life, he cannot perform basic procedures due to lack of equipment and patients slip away.

Dr Mugo is an asset to the hospital, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However he will not always be. Another plague of the hospital is keeping staff at St Luke’s. The young doctor is already thinking of moving to a hospital closer to a university where he can specialise in community care.

Additional reporting by Rachel Zammit Cutajar