Reducing maternal and infant mortality
The UNICEF statistics on maternal death as presented the other day by its Deputy Country Director, Madam Rushman Murtaza, are worrying. Speaking at a recent workshop for the Council of Traditional Women Leaders, she was reported to have said that of every 100,000 pregnant women who went into labour, 350 of them lost their lives during childbirth.
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Other disturbing statistics shared by the UNICEF Director were that out of every one million children born in Ghana, 82,000 of them died every year before their fifth birthday. Furthermore, 23 per cent of children in the country were said to be suffering from stunted growth.
These are hard facts enough to cause us headaches in these times of medical advancement. What happened to the efforts of successive governments and many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) towards improved maternal and child health in our country? Where did we go wrong especially at a time when there is some anxiety towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 which require the country to reduce child mortality rate by two- thirds and increase maternal survival by three quarters?
Seeking answers, I had a chat with officials of an NGO, MamaYe Ghana, where they are using positive campaign to confront the issues that are bedevilling us. As the name connotes, MamaYe is working for the good of mothers and, for that matter, pregnant women and their newborn children. It is the public face of a five-year programme which aims to improve maternal and newborn survival in six sub-Saharan African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The programme is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
MamaYe Ghana aims to transform attitudes and dispel the archaic and resigned social beliefs of traditionalists in some African settings. The campaign pushes strongly for increased awareness of the right to survive childbirth. It demands that leaders take action and commit resources towards maternal and newborn health. The campaign also seeks to raise public awareness and demand for skilled healthcare workers, as well as facilities necessary for safe childbirth.
Launched in Ghana earlier this year, MamaYe Ghana is concentrating efforts in three key areas, which include improved training and supervision, client-community-provider partnership for improved healthcare and improved local use of evidence for decision making. With partners and volunteers working in selected regions and districts across the country, the good news is that the campaign is currently being implemented in 16 districts across four regions, namely Greater-Accra, Volta, Ashanti and the Upper West in the hope of being expanded.
MamaYe seeks to empower the communities and health workers to use score cards to assess the quality of maternal and newborn health services in each of the implementing districts. The evidence generated would point to why and where women and newborns were dying. Such evidence would be used to increase community and public attention while demanding and strengthening political will to address gaps in maternal newborn health service delivery.
From reasons such as ignorance, which may lead to death in childbirth, and sometimes for reasons of inadequate blood for transfusion in cases of excessive bleeding, MamaYe uses approaches such as the training of health workers, district managers, volunteer partners and community leaders to assist while encouraging voluntary blood donations for the blood banks. They are using the media, particularly active social media platforms, to bring to the fore how individuals and communities could assist in the campaign to bring down maternal and newborn mortality rates.
Unfortunately, however, such efforts are perhaps coming a bit late as Ghana is likely to miss the MDGs 4 and 5. With the maternal mortality rate currently at 350 per 100,000 live births while the expected target is to come down to 185 deaths per 100,000 live births, we are definitely not going to make it for 2015.
However, we should not throw in the towel yet. Missing the mark gives us another opportunity to rethink once more and prioritise and throw much more weight behind the organisations that are focused on righting the wrongs by supporting them with the required resources. The health authorities should not just pay lip-service to the issues. We need action because missing the targets we set for ourselves shows, for sure, our level of commitment to deal with the issue, even at the highest levels.