Yaelle

Lilian Musalia, a nurse at Bukura Health Center in Kakamega County was watching TV late in the night with her husband on New Year’s Eve.  At 11.00 p.m. she saw a WhatsApp message from one her colleagues who was on night duty.

“I feel like screaming, I have a mother with PPH and I am all alone with the watchman,” the message read.

This was happening in the background of the protracted 2016 Doctor’s strike that saw several patients die due to lack of specialized services including mothers in need of gynecological attention.

Instinctively, Lilian rushed out of her house to help the nurse at the Health Center. “The patient’s bed was soaked in blood and my colleague looked dazed by the unfolding events. I knew we had to act fast,” she recalls.

A 17 year old patient, had delivered her baby at 2.00 p.m., but experienced heavy bleeding shortly afterwards. She suffered from postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). She was given 40 units of oxytocin, but the bleeding did not stop.

To establish the cause of bleeding, Lilian swiftly examined the client for tears on the vagina, removed blood clots from the uterus and massaged the womb. She soon realized the patient was experiencing PPH.

“I knew UBT was the only solution. We had two UBTs  in the maternity room so I began assembling one. I inserted the balloon and miraculously the bleeding stopped after filling it with only one liter of water,” recounts Lilian.

She left the facility at 2.00 a.m. after referring the patient to Mukumu Mission Hospital where she was transfused with two units of blood. The UBT was removed at 6.00 a.m. and the bleeding had completely stopped.The patient was saved.

Provided by: KMET

On November 8, 2015 Everlyne Nyasuguta began to experience stomach contractions and immediately knew she was in labor.

It did not come as a surprise for the 29 year old who had three previous deliveries. She waited until six in the morning to go to the Nyamusi Sub district Hospital in rural Nyamira County. “I stayed in labor for hours, 11 a.m. came and passed…I waited until 5 p.m but I was told I couldn’t deliver yet,” recounts Everlyne.

At around 8 p.m., the nurse who had attended to her earlier that morning came in for the night shift.  He mentioned the baby distressed and Everlyne was not in a position to ‘push’ hard enough for the baby to be delivered. Benard Kilosi, the nursing officer said he induced Everlyne and after a while, she delivered a beautiful baby boy. Then, all the sudden, he realized something was not right. “I realized the mother’s placenta was difficult to deliver, I tried to remove it but she was bleeding profusely. Finally, the placenta came out, but she continued losing blood,” he explains.

Mr. Kilosi went through all the medical protocols that are the norm to manage such cases, but the blood did not stop gushing out. He narrates: “I had put the patient on normal saline, gave her up to forty doses of syntocinon,  but she did not improve much.  I was afraid I would lose the patient.”

Although Everlyne was at times unconscious, she recounts that she could still hear the nursing officer issuing instructions. “I heard him order for a balloon. They brought it and he told me he was going to insert it in my womb and that it may stop the bleeding,” recalls Everlyne. Mr. Kilosi, with the help of other support staff, managed to place the balloon in the mother’s uterus and immediately the bleeding stopped. Everlyne lost 700 milliliters of blood. She was clinically pale and had gone into shock. If the bleeding continued they could have lost her, he explains.

“This mother is  proof that the ESM-UBT kit can save lives. It is a simple, but very effective method to control PPH,” concludes Mr. Kilosi, a first time user of the ESM-UBT kit.

To learn more view this interview with Everlyne and and Mr. Kilosi: https://youtu.be/6iW6hf7J4k4

Provided by: KMET

Hellen Achieng was waiting to be served breakfast at 8.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning in the post-delivery ward when she felt sudden pain in her abdomen, she looked down and her cloth was soaked in blood. A nurse had just walked in to check on her and her 9^th baby, who was delivered that morning.

She told the nurse she was not feeling well but when she tried to reposition herself on the bed she felt more blood gushing out. “It was like someone had poured blood with a basin on my bed,” Hellen described the scene. “I felt dizzy and thought I was dying. I screamed as the nurse looked at me shock written all over her face” she says.

The nurse shouted for help, and the team rushed Hellen back to the delivery room where she says, they gave her an injection of oxytocin. Hellen continued to lose blood.

“I kept thinking of my new born and my other eight children-wondering how they would survive without their mother,” she recalls.

Moments before Hellen passed out, she remembers seeing two healthcare providers using something like ‘trust’ (a common condom brand in Kenya)  which they inserted in her uterus using a small pipe. The providers had used the ESM-UBT to stop the uncontrollable bleeding that Hellen was experiencing after giving birth.

“I had died thrice. I would wake up and get unconscious again, my sister in law who was at the hospital told me later,” recounts Hellen who gained consciousness at St. Camilla, a private Mission Hospital where she had been referred to for blood transfusion after the providers in Sori Health Centre successfully arrested the hemorrhage.