Susan Akinyi in her hospital bed

Even the sweet smelling tea served with some bread does not make her move her body.  Chai Chai, kuja Chukua chai! The tea lady calls her, but she remains motionless. A good Samaritan sympathizes with her, and offers to get the tea for her.

 “It was Thursday morning when a bus came to Naivasha to pick us from the displaced camp for our journey to Nyanza. I was overjoyed since I knew I was going to join my family at last,” remembers 17-years-old Akinyi.

But things turned nasty when they were just about to reach their destination. “I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then another, and in succession, it became more intense,” she says.

“I tried so hard to hold it, but it was unbearable. And then I started to scream, which made me feel a little better as it took the pain off my mind.”

In the bus, she says, a lady came to her rescue, taking her to the back seat, where she was made to lie on her back.

She could feel some wetness. The baby was coming, the lady said, encouraging her to push.  

Meanwhile the driver was driving faster to get her to the nearest hospital in time. “I was so tired, I could not push anymore, but we were lucky as I was rushed to Pap Onditi hospital.”

On arriving at the hospital, the doctors said she was experiencing obstructed labour, which needed emergency attention. Unfortunately, they could not help her because they lacked a theatre. They referred her to the Provincial hospital in Kisumu.

By the time she arrived at there, she had passed-out and the baby was dead.

Dr Paul Mitei, who works at the hospital, says while they managed to save Akinyi’s life, she developed a complication that manifested itself as severe pain in the stomach.

They later realized she had developed sepsis; a medical condition characterized by the presence of various pus-forming and other pathogenic organisms, or their toxins, in the blood or tissues.

Her worsening condition forced doctors at the hospital to take her for surgery to remove the pus. In the process they discovered that the upper part of her Uterus had been destroyed, forcing them to remove it.

Although she narrowly escaped developing fistula, her hopes of delivering have been shattered.

But for Akinyi, that does not bother her so much. Her main concern for now is to remain alive.

“I knew that I would not come back after the second surgery, but I am alive. I don’t care if I cannot deliver anymore, because I do not want to go through such pain again,” she says.

Going through similar experience as Akinyi was 14 year old Cynthia Akoth. Although she also started experiencing labour pains while in the bus that was taking to Kisumu those from the Nakuru IDP camp, she managed to deliver without complications.

The smile on her face as people congratulate her for the new born tells of a delivery without complications.

Her only worry is her and the baby have no home to go to. At the moment they are staying at the Ebenezer, an Internally displaced camp in Ahero.

Akoth prays that she gets a place where she can settle permanently so as to be able to go back to school.

The sorry stories of the two women are a testimony of what many expectant women who were pushed to IDP camps have had to undergo; some paying the price with their lives.

 “The ones who suffered most are those with scars, some came with ruptured uterus, and other complications, because they were arriving at the hospital when the damage had already been done,” says Dr Juliana Otieno, Medical Superintendent, at the Provincial Hospital, Kisumu.

For other women, accessing hospitals was not easy due to the violence prevailing in their areas.

In Gem, for instance, Sara Okulo says could not go to hospital when the labour set-in, fearing for her live and that of those who were to take her. She delivered at home.

According to Dr Otieno, the aftermath of the election violence has renewed their believe that there is need to equip dispensaries to undertake emergency deliveries at that level to help reduce deaths and complications women experience.