Doctor's cry for babies as nurses' strike persisted

Her video went viral.

Dr Christine Manyasi, a neonatologist, says she is forced to sit in her personal car for a debrief after another difficult encounter at the newborn unit.

Appearing to be in low spirits, she reminds Kenyans of the persistent nurses’ strike.

Manyasi says she has been forced to perform the role of nurses, while having to choose which tasks can be done and which cannot.

“In case you do not know, there has been a nurses' strike,” the specialist begins to share her encounter.

“I take care of newborns- sick and small newborns. The most vulnerable people you can think of. They just sleep there and they either get the care they deserve and get well, or they die,” Dr Manyasi says in the video.

According to the doctor, a nurse plays a critical role in taking care of a newborn, especially preterm and very sick babies.

A nurse, she maintains, is more than a mother.

“If I were to choose whom to give these babies among the cadres, then I would say, give them to a nurse, even before the doctor. This is because the nurse knows the baby is fed, changed, their vital signs are stable, their medication is given, and the mother knows what to do and what not to do,” she adds.

Manyasi, stationed at Mbagathi Sun County newborn unit, says nurses have left a gap in newborn care.

“I do the prescriptions; I manage about 40 to 60 babies per day. With me is a team of nurses who implement the decisions I make, and then there is a mother who needs to be guided: please do this, please do that, let's do this together, let's watch this,” she says

“Now picture removing that nurse from the equation, and replacing that nurse who has done this for years, and knows when danger is looming, knows when to act, and when to hold. Replacing them with a younger nurse who is freshly qualified and has probably not had much experience, and has no additional training to handle newborns. This is what I have had to deal with for the past four weeks.”

Lack of nurses, she describes, contributes to unpreventable deaths and lack of quality care.

“And what are the results- it is difficult,” she takes a heavy breath.

“Babies die who do not deserve to die; mothers go home heartbroken, families are broken forever because a nurse was not at work,” she opens up in the video.

“I am not sure whom to blame here, whether it is nurses or the government but I do know the silence is quite nauseating; somebody needs to be talking- please let us see some conversations, let us see that somebody somewhere is bothered by the fact that the nurse is missing from the bedside”, she observes.

According to the specialist, it is wrong to normalise mothers going home without babies,

In a worse scenario, she says is when a mother goes home without babies who should have gone home; she becomes a productive individual in future.

The strike, she warns, might reverse gains made in reducing newborn deaths.

This is even as the Ministry of Health picks up the Every Woman, Every Newborn, Everywhere (EWENE) programme to avert maternal and newborn deaths.

“In another four months, will we show low mortality because we do not know where babies died? Because right now babies are dying at home. The preterm are longer in incubators; they are dying at home. The bigger ones are probably surviving.”

At newborn units, she says mothers are in despair. All they hope is to see their babies healthy.

“The last three days, as I do my rounds, a mother runs in with their baby- ‘please help my baby. I delivered at home, the facility was not working, and the baby has not fed, my baby is hot, is looking very yellow, is not breathing properly.’”

With the strike, she observes that several babies do not get medical care; they die at home.

“The mother who knows to just sneak in, they come; what happens to those who do not know when to come, and the ones who come, how many can we just take in? How many can I honestly deliver services to, when I have two nurses taking care of 65 babies?” she poses.

Dr Manyasi says newborn care requires time and specialised attention.

For instance, a nurse requires several hours with the baby.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a nurse should not take care of more than four babies.

However, at Mbagathi, two nurses are taking care of 65 babies, a role they have played for the past 41 days as the nurses' strike persists.

“It basically means babies are not getting treatment, and I cannot blame her. I try my best. I literally forget I am a doctor and try to help out where I can, but how much can I do?

‘Somebody, anybody, please do something. We cannot go on like this. Kindly save the babies of Kenya.’”

Several babies admitted at the facility’s newborn unit have infections, are unable to feed, look very sick and are unable to breathe properly.

The majority of babies suffer high rates of infection following home deliveries.

On Tuesday, September 1, 2026, The Standard visited the facility where the doctor serves and proceeded to the newborn unit.

Here, mothers move in and out of the unit in shifts to breastfeed their newborns.

At about 4.30 pm, The Standard sought to speak to one of the nurses caring for the babies, a request that was not immediately granted.

After waiting for about an hour, a nurse in blue scrubs emerged from the unit, appearing visibly anxious.

Efforts to speak to her were unsuccessful as she maintained that she was too busy.

“I am so sorry, I cannot talk. We are so stretched. The workload is too much,” she said.

The nurse quickly returned to the unit, files in hand, to attend to the babies under her care.

The Standard remained at the facility to observe what was happening.

Mothers kept watch over their babies, carefully observing feeding times and waiting for health workers to attend to them.

Among them was Anne Agnes, whose premature baby had been admitted to the unit for three weeks.

Agnes appeared disturbed as she described what she said were delays in care and inadequate attention to her baby.

Her baby was delivered at 27 weeks. However, the baby has sight and heart problems that require assessment.

Despite the baby’s condition, Agnes alleges that there are times when no nurse is available to attend to her.

“At times, students take care of my baby. They even ask me about the medication to administer. I am not a doctor, so how would I know?” she asks.

She also claims to have witnessed difficulties during procedures.

“At times, they do not know the amount to give the baby. I have witnessed challenges while connecting my baby to drips,” she says.

Agnes says she has also seen nurses call doctors when they are unsure about certain procedures.

According to her, a doctor reviews the baby about three times a week and gives instructions on the care required.

But beyond Agnes’ account, the unit offered a more sobering picture.

The Standard spent the night at the facility, observing the events as they unfolded.

At around 8 pm, Margaret walked into the unit to breastfeed her baby.

Moments later, she walked out with wet eyes- she had just lost the baby.

A man walked in, said to be her husband, who appeared to be also overwhelmed by grief.

At around 9 pm, Margaret prepared to leave the facility without the baby she had come to deliver.

Other mothers from the postnatal ward accompanied her back to the ward, consoling her as she struggled to come to terms with the loss.

Three days later, on September 4 at around 11 am, The Standard reached Margaret by phone after she had been discharged, seeking to understand what had happened.

But the grief was still raw.

“For now, I cannot talk. Please allow me to heal first,” she said.

“But there was some laxity,” she added, without giving further details.

Margaret had been admitted to the facility as an emergency and delivered through Caesarean section.

The Standard established that her baby died on the sixth day after delivery.

Ministry of Health data, powered by the Every Woman, Every Newborn, Everywhere (EWENE) programme, shows that at least 16 maternal deaths have been reported in the past week (this week- from September 1 to 8.

The Number of babies dying is also on the rise, with a total of 116 so far this month.