Christine Mawia Sammy (OGW), a pediatric nurse working at the Kitui Referral Hospital has been shortlisted for an International Award for her efforts to save newborn babies and their mothers.
Christine is currently the County Reproductive, Maternal Neonatal, child, and Adolescent health coordinator and has worked as a nurse for over 20 years. In 2010, she came up with the first newborn unit in Kitui County which saved more than 1,000 newborns in a year.
“I started my nursing career in 1995 when I was posted here in Kitui County Referral Hospital, I have worked hard, and in 2010 is when I realized I have the potential to save the mothers and their newborns in this county. I came up with the first-ever newborn unit in Kitui County referral hospital and within one year we were able to save more than 1000 lives of newborns some of who were even premature and that made the neonatal mortality rate drop from above 50 to below 10 percent,” she stated.
Her dedicated efforts in neonatal healthcare made her win two awards as the Kitui District and Eastern Province Nurse of the Year in 2010 which motivated her to continue working hard and training other nurses to work as a team. In 2013, she was also announced as the International Neonatal Nurse Excellence Award winner and she went to Northern Ireland to receive the award.
The dedicated nurse is now the only Kenyan nurse announced as one of the Top 10 finalists of the Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award 2023 out of 52,065 applications from 202 Countries. She hopes to win the international award as the best overall as she continues to mentor other nurses and also ensure that the infant mortality rate in Kitui keeps on dropping.
“When you win these awards, you get motivated to work harder. I was also given a scholarship to go to Germany to study Leadership and Management skills where I did my advanced diploma and so I continued to work hard. We are preparing to go to London to receive this Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award and I will do my best to see that I’m declared the overall winner out of the 10 of us who have been shortlisted,” she added.
She said that they have been working as a team in the Kitui County referral hospital to ensure that they continue to save more lives.
“One thing that made me win these awards is because I’m very passionate when working with newborns, I’m very committed and I work very hard to make sure that if there is a life that I’m supposed to save, I make sure that I save it. I don’t look at the clock when it is the time to go home and there is a baby who needs my help, I stay and make sure I save that life,” Christine went on.
