Media must help save women’s lives — Jehu-Appiah
Media practitioners have been urged to increase their support for efforts to save Ghanaian women from abortion-related deaths.
Advertisement
The Country Director of Ipas Ghana, an international NGO that promotes women’s health, Dr Koma Jehu-Appiah, who said this, noted that although the media periodically highlighted the issues of unsafe abortion, the practice was still killing women in Ghana.
That implied that the public was not adequately informed on unsafe abortion, Dr Jehu-Appiah said, and challenged media practitioners to continuously highlight the issue in the media.
Dr Jehu-Appiah made these remarks when he interacted with the Media Action Team for Reproductive Health (MAT-RH), a media advocacy group that promotes women’s reproductive health, in Accra last Friday.
Public education
He said public education was a key component in the effort to reduce unsafe abortion related deaths, as research indicated that women who ended up seeking unsafe abortion from quack providers included girls as young as 12 years.
Dr Samuel Antobam, a Senior Advisor at Ipas, also said the World Health Organisation estimated that out of every 15 unsafe abortions, one or two were likely to die.
According to him, in this country, unsafe abortion is highly driven by stigma, cost of services and attitude of service providers.
“Research conducted during Ipas community outreach activities have shown that involving traditional leadership, particularly the queens, in maternal health programmes decreases abortion related stigma,” he said.
Other Trending Stories
Another area of concern, he said, was that service providers did not show respect to women who sought safe abortion services, particularly young clients, and that usually prevented many from going to hospital to access safe abortion.
Ipas support
Dr Antobam said Ipas had supported health facilities in the Greater Accra, Eastern and Ashanti regions to provide maternal health services to over 34,000 girls, some as young as 14.
Mr Selorme Azumah, Community Access Advisor, Ipas, said the organisation was prepared to engage more with the media in its work to improve women’s health.
He emphasised that a closer collaboration with the media was crucial, as many of the women encountered during their operations indicated that the media was the source of information on reproductive health education.