Doctors haunted by patients they could not save as nurses strike ends

Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives members protest in Nairobi. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

They have seen it all.

But some deaths take a toll that does not end with their shift. They live with them long after the shift ends, carrying the memories of patients they could not save.

For doctors working through the ongoing nurses' strike, the trauma is no longer only about the patients they struggle to save.

It is also about the families they must face when there is nothing more they can do.

Patients arrive at hospitals in desperation, often at the most critical stage of their illness, when precious time has already been lost.

Here, doctors task changes from trying to save a life to telling a family that “their loved one is dead.”

The trauma of receiving a woman whose vital signs had already stopped is still fresh in the mind of Dr Geoffrey Kasembeli.

The consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Trans Nzoia received a 36-year-old woman at his private clinic on September 4, 2026.

She was pale.

On examination, Dr Kasembeli realised her heart had stopped beating.

He had to tell her husband that the woman he had brought to hospital hoping to save was already dead.

The woman left behind an infant, and seven other children.

“The man is so devastated. He brought his wife thinking he was saving her, only to have tables turn, he wheels away a corpse,” Kasembeli told The Standard immediately after receiving the case.

The woman had been referred from a private facility and booked as an emergency.

But by the time she reached the clinic, there was nothing the doctor could do.

She died from postpartum haemorrhage (PPH).

Dr Kasembeli said the woman had delivered at home on August 29, 2026, with the help of a traditional birth attendant.

But later developed heavy bleeding.

On September 2, she sought help at a private clinic, but the bleeding continued and her condition deteriorated.

She was referred to Kasembeli's clinic the following day, but by the time she arrived, it was too late.

For Kasembeli, the case has stayed with him.

“This particular case has traumatised me more. The husband is sad, he is grieving,” he said.

The case, he said, is part of a troubling pattern doctors are increasingly confronting.

He disclosed that doctors are increasingly receiving complicated cases, particularly maternity emergencies, with more women giving birth at home and seeking care only when their condition deteriorates.

The Standard did not speak to the bereaved man, as the loss was still too raw.

But Kasembeli is not alone in carrying such encounters.

At Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Dr Kireki Omanwa, president of the Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society (KOGS), has confronted a similar tragedy.

On Monday, August 31, 2026, Dr Omanwa received a woman referred from a private clinic in Nairobi.

She had a history of low blood pressure and had been brought to KNH for specialised care.

But on arrival, it was already too late. She died together with her unborn baby.

“This particular case of a mother who died together with her unborn baby is devastating,” said Dr Omanwa.

“I examined her, only to discover she had no heartbeat. We could do nothing to save her life,” said the specialist.

For doctors, such encounters are becoming moments of grief they must confront while still expected to return to the next patient.

The two cases reflect the tragedies families have been forced to confront as the nurses’ strike persists.

Omanwa said the prolonged strike is also taking an emotional toll on doctors, who continue to watch patients arrive too late and are left with the painful task of telling families that their loved ones are dead.

“The joy of a doctor and health professional is to safely deliver a woman and have her walk out of the hospital with her baby,” said Omanwa.

“Having a woman leave the hospital empty-handed, without her baby, and, altogether, a maternal death can be devastating,” he added, calling on the government to resolve the nurses’ strike to restore a smooth workflow in hospitals.

In Murang’a, Dr Simon Kigondu had barely processed the loss of a baby when he found himself confronting another emergency.

The Standard met the gynaecologist, shortly after he encountered a mother who had lost her baby after moving between hospitals during the nurses’ strike.

The baby died after delayed access to care.

Dr Kigondu described the encounter as dramatic, one that took him back to his days as a medical intern.

Back then, he saidhe was quite efficient at clearing patients from the labour ward.

But then, there were nurses.

“My first review today was a mother who lost her baby at the height of the nurses’ strike at the beginning of this month,” he told The Standard.

The mother had previously undergone two Caesarean sections.

She first presented at a public hospital, only to find that delivery services were unavailable because of the nurses strike.

She travelled by motorbike to another hospital, but services there were also limited.

Eventually, she reached a private hospital.

By then, however, her baby had died.

The woman who was in labour required an emergency Caesarean section.

“As she narrated her story, I held back tears,” said Dr Kigondu.

But there was little time to process the encounter.

As he reviewed other patients at the facility, a woman in labour suddenly felt the urge to push.

There was no time to get her to the delivery room.

With 26 years of experience in childbirth, Kigondu quickly put on gloves and stepped in, safely assisting the woman to deliver her baby.

“We got the cord clamps, safely delivered the placenta, ensured that the mother was not bleeding and administered uterotonic,” he said.

The experience offered a stark reminder of the strain the strike is placing on maternity units.

At Kigumo maternity unit, Kigondu admitted that he was overwhelmed by the workload.

He is working as a doctor and handling duties normally performed by nurses and midwives.

“The experience reinforced something important, doctors can step in during an emergency, but doctors cannot replace nurses,” he said.

The specialist urged the government and nurses to reach a deal and end the strike, warning that maternity care cannot function without adequate skilled personnel.

He said the majority of women he is seeing are presenting with postpartum haemorrhage, a major cause of maternal deaths.

The danger becomes even greater when women cannot access timely skilled birth attendance.

“We cannot campaign against mothers bleeding to death while ignoring the human resources required to prevent, recognise and manage that bleeding,” he said.

A functioning maternity unit, he said, requires midwives.

“Labour and delivery do not wait for strikes to end,” said Dr Kigondu.

“Babies do not postpone their arrival because negotiations have stalled,” he added.

While industrial action is a legitimate labour tool, he said, citizens should not become casualties of industrial disputes.

The experiences of the three doctors unfold against a wider disruption of care across the health system.

A spot check by The Standard at various hospitals, dispensaries, health centres and referral facilities revealed widespread disruption of care as the nurses’ strike continued.

Major hospitals in Nairobi, including Kenyatta National Hospital and Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH), were operating under pressure.

National referral facilities are admitting mainly emergency cases.

The Standard kept a night vigil at KNH on Tuesday, where patients arriving for treatment were turned away as the hospital struggled to cope with the strike.

The facility was also not accepting referrals from other hospitals, except maternal emergencies.

Among the pregnant women received at KNH was Branice*, who had been referred from Mbagathi Hospital.

Branice arrived at KNH at 10.41pm, but was only booked in around midnight after intervention by her husband.

She had swollen legs, high blood pressure and an eccentric pregnancy, where the pregnancy lies predominantly toward one side of the abdomen.

Doctors considered it a high-risk pregnancy and admitted her.

As she was being checked in, The Standard spotted two ambulances at the facility.

One, a private ambulance, arrived at about 7.55pm carrying a patient with a spinal cord injury.

Despite repeated pleas by the driver, the patient was not admitted.

The ambulance had initially parked between the Emergency Centre and the International Trauma Centre, but the driver was directed to move to a far area, with no reasons given despite there being few patients unlike normal days.

To him, this was a sign of being send away from the facility.

As the wait dragged on, the patient groaned in pain inside the ambulance.

“We got here from KUTRRH, but there is no hope of having this patient admitted,” the driver told The Standard at about 12.25am, visibly distressed.

The wait eventually proved futile.

After making several phone calls, the driver left KNH at exactly 12.30am, telling The Standard he was taking the patient to St Peter’s Hospital in Uthiru.

Other women arriving at KNH, including those due to deliver, were also turned away.

Earlier, The Standard had camped at Mbagathi Hospital, where services were partially operational, with patients crowding the emergency area.

Many said they had arrived in the morning for lack of an option to be treated.

Here, beds were full to capacity, with some patients forced to share a bed, while a nurse in uniform moved around checking patients' blood pressure.

The facility appeared to be relying heavily on interns and medical officer interns to keep services running.

At least three female students were seen attending to patients.

By 9.30pm, more patients continued to stream into the facility, further stretching the available workforce.

Nurses appeared overwhelmed, as caregivers pleaded for their patients to be attended to.

At about 9.35pm, a man in civilian clothes, wearing a brown jacket, moved around the emergency area asking caregivers to leave the space to allow health workers to attend to patients.

Some of those helping to manage the crowd identified themselves as students from a college in Nairobi, who had also stepped in to help keep services running.

For the doctors still at work, however, the pressure is not simply about the growing workload.

It is about working in a system where the usual team is no longer intact.

Even as patients struggle for care, President William Ruto, the Council of Governors and governors have yet to find a solution to have the striking health workers report back to work.

The striking workforce includes nurses, clinical officers, laboratory technicians and public health officers, among others.

Only doctors are at work, but they cannot work in isolation.

Nurses are pushing for recognition of their CBA that has stalled since 2017.

The CBA is at a cost of Sh5.9 billion, but has since been poked by Council of Governors (CoG) chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi on the ground that it is not financially sustainable.

The Wajir Governor further claims the document was signed under duress.

But in an interview with The Standard, nurses union Secretary General Seth Panyako says they will intensify the strike across the country until their CBA is honoured.

Last week on Monday, nurses through their union met the CoG health chairperson, Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir, and are awaiting the conclusion of discussions before the matter is taken to SRC.

Panyako says this could pave the way for the strike to be called off.

“The best minimum is SRC letter of no objection. It is not agreement if CoG. We want a deal at CoG and a letter of no objection from SRC,” he maintains.

On Wednesday the nurses called off the strike after reaching a return-to-work deal with the Council of Governors.