Make preterm care major priority – Dr Tsrakasu

Mortalities among preterm babies at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Ho Teaching Hospital (HTH) have been declining at a rather low rate in the past three years.

Sixty-three out of a total of 235 preterm admissions at the unit in 2022 died, representing 26.8 percent of the figure.

In 2023, the unit recorded 161 preterm admissions out of which 16 (9.9 percent) died.

In the first half of this year, 15 of the 128 admissions died, (11.7percent) could not survive.

The Head of Paediatrics and Child Health Department of the HTH, Dr (Med) Selorm Tsrakasu disclosed this at the Prematurity Awareness Month celebration at the hospital last Friday (November 22).

About 20 mothers of preterm babies attended the event which was on the theme: Breaking barriers, access to care everywhere; together with their surviving preterm children who were born more than a year ago.

Dr Tsrakasu said in spite of the declining figures, the survival rate of the extreme preterm cases is very low.

“This is because they have not been given the opportunity to survive and we have failed to actually make preterm care a major priority,” he added.

For instance, Dr Tsrakasu said, the unit was still dependent of improvised bottle continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to nurse preterm babies instead of other modern gadgets.

Further, he said, the unit lacked gowns for mothers, compromising infection control strategies.

“We still do not have a mechanical ventilator at our NICU and the high cost of medications, including surfactant needed by preterm babies to survive,” he further complained.

The absence of those instruments, Dr Tsrakasu said, undermined efforts to reduce the preterm moralities at the unit.

On a brighter side, he said a mechanical ventilator would be installed at the NICU in December, to be followed immediately by the training of the staff on how to operate it.

A medical officer at the Child Health Unit of the HTH Dr (Med) Yayra Akoto-Baako, who was born premature, urged mothers of preterm children to make follow up visits to the hospital, after they were discharged, to ensure they recovered fully and developed smoothly.