A new study revealed that severe nurse shortages in Kenyan public hospitals, especially in newborn units, are hindering quality care for sick and premature babies. Nurses can only deliver a third of the required care, with each nurse having as little as 30 minutes per baby during a 12-hour shift.

• In some hospitals, nurses are responsible for more than 25 newborns per shift.
• The study, Harnessing Innovation in Global Health for Quality Care (HIGH-Q), was funded by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and carried out by the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in partnership with the Kenya Paediatric Research Consortium (KEPRECON) and the University of Oxford.
• Prof. Mike English, the study’s principal investigator, emphasized that improving nurse staffing and ward environments is crucial for advancing the quality of care.