Nurses at Pumwani Maternity Hospital are putting more than four immaturely born babies in one incubator as they struggle to utilize the few incubators available to save babies lives.

Under an ideal situation, one incubator is meant for only one baby. However, the facility can hold utmost two babies if each one of them weighs less than one kilogram.

Even as Pumwani struggles with serious financial strains, there are allegations that some staff at the hospital and City Hall are draining the little collections the hospital gets from patients and well-wishers.

There seems to be a vicious and organised scheme to control the money collected and the imprest at the hospital by a group of individuals operating inside and outside the City Council of Nairobi.

A task force report containing damning findings on the operations at Pumwani Maternity Hospital and which is likely to shed light on the causes of the high maternal and child mortality at the facility has been handed over to appropriate government authorities for action.

Corruption, financial crisis, lack of critical supplies required by mothers and babies, mistreatment of mothers, moral and ethical decadence, and absenteeism among doctors, are highlighted as some of the factors that have compromised the quality of services delivered by the hospital.

Many parts within the East and Horn of Africa have been hit by drought. And as the rains fail and water disappears women continue to bear the heavy burden of ensuring that their children eat and thirst is quenched.

Those who have been to the arid and semi arid lands of Kenya can attest to the fact that the issue of missing rains is drawing pitiful pictures. The stories they tell from what they have witnessed are heart wrenching.