The SA Human Rights Commission says the Tembisa Hospital in Gauteng urgently needs more staff after another 10 babies have died in the institution. The babies born in the hospital have died in recent weeks, and although numerous reasons have been stated, the hospital is held responsible for the death of all the babies. The..
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10 Babies die at Tembisa Hospital, Gauteng due to outbreak of antibiotic resistant bacteria – deaths could have been avoided if there was sustainable hygiene and sufficient staff
Pelonomi Hospital – 7 newborn babies die in 8 days in neonatal unit
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Seven babies died in the neonatal unit of Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein within eight days.
Mondli Mvambi, the spokesperson for the Free State Department of Health, confirmed the death of these newborn babies between December 2 and 10.
Mvambi says the sudden rise in mortality in the neonatal unit is been investigated.
“We found the department had taken neonatal babies with an average weight of 600 g on average last month.”
The lower the weight at birth, the higher the risk of illness and death, he says.
“We find that our community is less and less concerned about the rules and procedures regarding antenatal care.”
He says generalization is dangerous.
“However, there is an increasing number of young mothers in the province giving birth to stillborn babies and most of these cases come to Pelonomi.”
We find that our community is less and less aware of the rules and procedures regarding antenatal care.
Those statistics make Pelonomi look bad,
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Medical facility under investigation after two babies die in mysterious circumstances at Shongwe Hospital, Mpumalanga
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The Mpumalanga health department on Tuesday said it launched an internal investigation into the deaths of two babies, who died at Shongwe Hospital in Nkomazi after they were born prematurely.
Department spokesperson Dumisani Malamule told the African News Agency (ANA) that the babies died on Monday night.
“There were suspicions at the beginning that the babies died due to a lack of oxygen, but we called in a company which established that the oxygen was enough,” said Malamule.
“The babies died in a ward of babies who were born prematurely and no one has been suspended. The outcome of the investigation will give us an idea on whether an action must be taken. If the investigation reveals that the deaths were due to a human error, a criminal case will also be opened with the police.”
Malamule could not immediately reveal the ages of the dead babies nor disclose whether they were twins. He said the member of the executive council (MEC) for health, Sasek
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Three things you should know about Three things you should know about rotavirus
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Rotavirus is highly contagious and a common cause of infectious diarrhoea in developing countries. Since children younger than three are worst affected, a paediatrician sheds light on detection, prevention and treatment.
1. Infection
Nausea, vomiting, watery diarrhoea and fever are the most common symptoms of rotavirus. These symptoms usually start one to three days after exposure to the virus and last for an average of eight days.
‘If your family doctor or paediatrician suspects your child has rotavirus, the infection can be confirmed with a stool sample test,’ says Dr Heidi Ackermann, a paediatrician at Mediclinic George. Adults can also contract the virus, but the symptoms are usually much milder.
‘You can also can get the virus more than once, but you won’t get re-infected with the same strain,’ Dr Ackermann adds. Important to note is that although blood in the stools is not a symptom of the virus, it is a symptom that can’t
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How did this happen? – More than 400 newborn babies infected with listeriosis
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The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported that 412 of the 973 laboratory-confirmed listeriosis cases are babies less than 28 days old.
Of these neonatal cases, 396 had early-onset listeriosis within six days of their birth.
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