Kenya - A glove to save a mother's life

The need for gloves for health workers assisting with childbirth may be obvious, but in Yala Sub-District Hospital in western Kenya, obvious does not mean available. At the government-run health facility, serving about 96,000 people, there has been a shortage of gloves–and health personnel are overwhelmed. "Are you going to send a mother away to buy gloves at night? We need to attend to her, but we cannot recycle gloves. At the same time we cannot touch blood," said Eric Achira, nursing officer in charge of maternity at the facility. People accompanying the woman are sent to buy gloves, but they often do not have enough money. Achira has on many occasions been forced to dig into his pocket to buy gloves and stock the maternity ward.