Baby-death stats 'not that bad'
2007-08-18 07:23
Port Elizabeth - The Eastern Cape government has rejected a claim by a suspended hospital official that 200 babies have been dying every month at East London's two largest hospitals.
The deputy manager of the East London hospital complex, Dr Nokuzola Ntshona, made the claim in an interview published in the Mail and Guardian on Friday.
She said babies had been dying at the rate of 200 a month in Cecilia Makiwane and Frere Hospitals for the past 14 years and that nothing had been done about it.
However, provincial government spokesperson Phaphama Mfenyana said statistics showed that the average number of infant deaths at both hospitals combined from April last year to March this year was 49 a month.
'Only 15% related to infection'
Roughly half of them were at Frere and half at Cecilia Makiwane.
At each site roughly half were newborns and the other half children older than one month.
The rate of perinatal deaths was 33.8 per 1 000 births of babies weighing more than 1kg.
By comparison, similar facilities elsewhere in the country recorded a death rate of 38.2 in 2004, and 34.9 in 2005.
Of the deaths occurring in newborns, only 15% related to infection.
Of the deaths in the non-newborn group, more than half were due to HIV-related illnesses.
Hospital staff held regular meetings to look at ways of decreasing the risk of deaths or disability in future patients.
- SAPA