Assessment of neonatal referral infrastructure and clinical characteristics of referred neonates in three first referral hospitals in Nairobi County, Kenya.

Background: One in five newborns in Nairobi County, Kenya, may require inpatient neonatal care. We sought to examine referrals to and from three busy first-level referral public hospitals in Nairobi and what infrastructure and systems are available to support neonatal transport from these first-referral level hospitals to the main tertiary care center.

Methods: Patient-level data of newborns over 12 months were retrospectively extracted from routinely collected patient data and examined to characterize those referred into and out of three newborn units in the study hospitals.