11 newborn babies died in hospital fire in Senegal
A series of disasters in healthcare facilities have shaken the African country to the core.
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Visitors standing outside Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital in Tivaouane, Senegal. (AFP)
On Wednesday, 11 newborn babies died in a hospital fire in Tivaouane, a city in west Senegal, according to the Senegalese president, Macky Sall, just before midnight on Wednesday.
"I have just learned with pain and dismay about the deaths of 11 newborn babies in the fire at the neonatal department of the public hospital," he tweeted. "To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy," Sall added.
Je viens d'apprendre avec douleur et consternation le décès de 11 nouveaux nés, dans l'incendie survenu au service de néonatalogie de l'hôpital Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh de Tivaouane.
— Macky Sall (@Macky_Sall) May 25, 2022
A leurs mamans et et à leurs familles, j'exprime ma profonde compassion.
The horrific incident, which was caused by "a short circuit," happened at Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital in the transport hub of Tivaouane, according to Senegalese politician Diop Sy, remarking that "the fire spread very quickly."
Demba Diop, the city's mayor, said "three babies were saved."
The Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital was very recently inaugurated, according to local media.
The Senegalese health minister, who was in a meeting with the WHO in Geneva, upon knowing, said he will be returning immediately.
"This situation is very unfortunate and extremely painful," he said on radio. "An investigation is underway to see what happened."
Citizens are complaining about a number of other incidents in public health facilities in Senegal, where the quality of the facilities exhibits socioeconomic discrepancy between urban and rural areas.
In late April, in Linguere in the north, a fire broke out in a hospital, resulting in four newborn babies being killed. The mayor attributed the cause to an electrical malfunction in the air conditioning unit in the maternity ward.
The accident in Tivaoune comes after the country mourned a woman, Astou Sokhna, who died waiting in vain for a C-section. Arriving at a Louga hospital in pain, the hospital staff refused to admit her for a C-section, saying that it was not scheduled. The woman died 20 hours after she arrived, on April 1st.
This caused a mass wave of outrage across the country as citizens asserted that the death could have been avoided had the health care system not been a failure.
The three midwives who were on duty the night of Sokhna's death were sentenced on May 11 by the High Court of Louga to six months of suspended imprisonment for failing to "assist a person in danger."
With Wednesday's fresh tragedy, Amnesty International has urged "the government to set up an independent commission of inquiry to determine responsibility and punish the culprits, no matter the level they are at in the state apparatus."
