Pregnant women urged to visit antenatal care centres
The Upper West Regional Programme Officer of SEND-Ghana, an NGO, Mr Bashiru Mohammed Jumah, has urged pregnant women to visit health facilities to access antenatal care (ANC) services.
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He also called on husbands to encourage, support and accompany their pregnant wives to health facilities for care.
According to him, accessing ANC was a major means of reducing maternal mortality in Ghana.
Meeting
Mr Jumah was speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting on assessing a draft report on a “2016 Clients’ Satisfaction Survey Report”.
He also spoke on maternal healthcare delivery challenges in Wa, the Upper West Regional capital.
The report, which centred on family planning, antenatal care, postnatal care, as well as supervised delivery, is a subsidiary of SEND-Ghana’s “Improving Maternal Health Service Delivery through Participatory Governance (IMPROVE)” project, started in 2014 and expected to end in 2017.
The survey was conducted in 30 districts in the three northern regions and covered a sample size of 5,311 women who attended and received health delivery at some selected health facilities in the regions.
The forum was organised by SEND-Ghana and attended by representatives of district assemblies, district directors of health, among others.
Maternal mortality
Mr Jumah noted that although Ghana had made significant improvements in reducing maternal mortality from 780 to 320 per 100,000 births between 1990 and 2015, much was still needed to be done to reduce the rate to the barest minimum.
“Although interventions such as the Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) and the free maternal health policy have contributed to the reduction in maternal deaths, there is still the need for much to be done in order to meet Goal Five of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he indicated.
Findings
He expressed regret about some findings in the report which indicated that “only 17 per cent of the sample size said they met the four minimum requirements of ANC attendance throughout their pregnancy period, while the remaining 83 per cent indicated that they attended ANC less than four times throughout their pregnancy period”.
According to him, the participants also stated that they did not go for ANC due to the unfriendly attitude of some health providers and the charging of fees which they could not afford.
Lack of passion
The participants in the forum observed that lack of passion for the job, indiscipline at training institutions and the “get-rich- quick” attitude of some health personnel accounted for their unfriendly behaviour and the alleged charging of illegal fees for services delivered.
They suggested that SEND-Ghana and other stakeholders meet with heads of health training institutions to discuss with them the need to instill discipline in their students, as well as establish client service centres at the district assemblies to address those challenges.
