Lack of space and equipment at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Nsawam Government Hospital, has forced officials to keep pre-term babies on tables and on drawers.

Hospital authorities said the situation is exposing the babies to unhealthy conditions which could increase neonatal deaths.

Mothers are being made to adopt Kangaroo care for their pre-term babies.

Kangaroo care or kangaroo mother care, sometimes called skin-to-skin contact, is a technique of newborn care where babies are kept chest-to-chest and skin-to-skin with a parent, typically their mother. 

Evelyn who had triplets at the Hospital, tired of rotating her babies using the method – which takes all day for all three – has had to enlist her mother to support her.

She is one of many mothers at the facility who has had to watch over her pre-term babies in an overcrowded makeshift room without ventilation, breast feeding or catering to their preterm babies.

Joy News Komla Adom was at the facility, he spoke to the Municipal Chief Executive, Isaac Buabeng who said the Municipal Health Directorate is preparing invoices to enable it expand the Neonatal Intensive Unit of the Hospital.

He said he is committed to monitoring and supervising the project to ensure neonatal deaths at the facility does not increase.

Komla has more in the report below: