Eastern Region takes steps to reduce maternal deaths
The Eastern Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service has put in place measures to reduce maternal deaths in the region.
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These include: the posting of additional midwives to health facilities, improving the capacity of traditional birth attendants in the rural areas and educating the communities on the need to ensure that women in labour are conveyed on time to health facilities.
In the first half of this year, 62 women died from pregnancy-related complications in the region, as against 55 recorded within the same period in 2012.
The region has a population of 2.8 million with a limited number of health workers, especially doctors and midwives. The average age of the midwives is 55 and most of them will soon retire.
The Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Mcdamien Dedzo, provided the maternal death statistics at a half-year performance review meeting at Koforidua on Wednesday.
Dr Dedzo said he was not happy about the number of maternal deaths in the region and that the regional health directorate had always been in touch with the national headquarters of the health service for additional midwives.
He added that with the public being sensitised to the issue and other factors being addressed, maternal deaths would be reduced. With regard to measles, Dr Dedzo said its infection stood at 41.8 per cent.
Dr Mcdamien Dedzo also said management of funds had shown a remarkable improvement such that the challenges of un-deposited cash, where expenditure was made directly from revenue had reduced drastically due to the internal control mechanisms put in place. However, he added that he was not happy about the financing of healthcare in the region, especially the re-imbursement of the directorate by the National Health Insurance Secretariat, which was a problem for the health facilities.
Also of worry to the regional health service director is the delay in referring medico-legal and legal issues emanating from the district hospitals to the regional directorate of the service, which according to him, had affected the service adversely.
Dr Dedzo spoke dwelt extensively on other areas of health service delivery in the region and expressed the view that with the measures instituted, the challenges facing the regional health directorate would be addressed in due course.
Mrs Margaret Odame Adufu, Deputy Director of Nursing Services in charge of Public Health, told the gathering that young nurses opted for the universities with the aim of graduating with degrees instead of going for midwifery training and that had contributed to the shortage of midwives.
“Most of our few midwives are above the age of 55 and due for retirement and this calls for their replacement, which will be difficult because the young nurses now prefer to be ‘degree nurses’,” Mrs Margaret Adufu stated.
By A. Kofoya Tetteh/Daily Graphic/Ghana