Two reproductive health organisations discuss maternal deaths
Two reproductive health organisations have held a meeting in Accra to discuss causes of maternal deaths in Ghana.
Advertisement
The meeting, organised by Mamaye Advocacy Coalition (MAC) and Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR), also offered suggestions on how maternal deaths in the country could be reduced to the barest minimum.
Statistics of maternal mortality
According to a report presented by the Mamaye Advocacy Coalition, figures obtained from the District Health Management Information System (DHMIS) in April 2014, revealed that 1,012 pregnant women died in 2013 from pregnancy related causes at health facilities across the country, representing 13.83 percentage increase over the 2012 figure of 889.
In May 2014, the Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, (MMEIG) which comprises, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its allied organisations, estimated that Ghana’s maternal mortality rate increased from 350 per 100,000 live births to 380 per 100,000 live births.
The report also said in 2013, an estimated 3,100 women died from pregnancy-related causes in Ghana which indicated that the figure included deaths recorded in and out of health facilities across the country.
Addressing participants in the meeting, the Executive Director of ARHR, Ms Vicky Okine, described the increasing rate of maternal deaths in the country as disheartening, and called for immediate actions to be taken to address the issue.
She also urged the government to provide adequate facilities and resources to health centres, to improve access to maternal healthcare.
Budgetary allocation
In their various reports, members of the coalition called on the government to make enough budgetary allocations to the health sector to address the issue of maternal mortality.
Other Trending Stories
The coalition is made up of 50 civil society organisations (CSOs) which aim at improving maternal and newborn survival rates in Ghana as well as reproductive health and HIV and AIDS.
Ghana is a signatory to the Abuja Declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Four and Five which state that the health budget of every member country should be at least 15 per cent of the total national budget.
The coalition, therefore, appealed to government to increase its budgetary allocation scheduled for the sector for 2015, to at least 15 per cent rather than the current 9.47 per cent.
The Abuja Declaration was designed to improve social and economic conditions to developing countries in the world by 2015 in which three of the declarations relate to health.
The Country Director of Ipas Ghana, Dr Jehu Appiah said that the organisation had also contributed to the prevention of maternal mortality by sensitising health personnels .
He said Ipas implemented scorecard programmes in eight project districts of the campaign, where 36 health facilities were assessed by a team of data collectors to improve maternal and newborn health(MNH) quality at health facilities.
Free healthcare
On free healthcare, the Deputy National Campaign Co-ordinator of Universal Access to Healthcare Campaign (UAHC), Mr Archibald Adams, said the UAHC had collaborated with the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to ensure that every Ghanaian gets access to free healthcare, especially pregnant women.
He noted that the lapse within the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was the delay in allocating funds to the authority.
While urging the government to fast-track allocations of funds to NHIA to ensure pregnant women had access to free and quality healthcare, Mr Adams also advised that the early allocation and monitoring of funds would ensure that institutions that worked in the health sector could be adequately resourced.
Touching on improved midwifery services, he said, the healthcare campaign had collaborated with midwifery training institutions to revise their curriculum, and added that customer service would be introduced as part of the training programme to improve the relationship between midwives and their patients.
Poor referral system
The Director of Programmes at the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Dr Yakubu Zakaria, also noted that the poor referral system in the country was a contributory factor to maternal and newborn mortality, hence the need for improvement.
According to him, there was inadequate information about the health status of patients who were transferred from Community-based Health Planning Service (CHPS) compounds to district and regional hospitals, as well as delay from service providers in the health centres.
Advertisement