For 43 days, public hospitals across Kenya fell unusually quiet. Expectant mothers in labour were turned away at hospital gates, families scrambled to raise money for private treatment, and a healthcare system already under strain buckled under the weight of a dispute that had dragged on for more than a decade.
By early September, human rights monitors were sounding the alarm over a mounting humanitarian toll, recording scores of preventable maternal, neonatal and perinatal deaths across county wards.
