Ashaiman, Dec. 17, GNA – Dr Kofi Adadey, Greater Accra Regional Director of Health Services, on Monday said health institutions in the country recorded a total of 837 maternal deaths in 2002 as against 904 in 2001. He said investigations were being conducted to establish the causes of the deaths while appropriate steps were being taken to avert the recurrence of the mishap. This was contained in a speech read for the Regional Director of Health Services at the launch of the Greater Accra Regional Safe Motherhood programme at Ashaiman, which was under the theme “death in pregnancy and childbirth are preventable: act now”. Dr Adadey announced that the government has drawn a safe motherhood plan towards the promotion of the health of women and children in the country. He, however, said the programme was beset by high attrition rate among staff of health institutions, high cost of training of service providers and the refusal of some expectant mother to access maternal care services. Dr Adadey said due to unforeseen circumstances that pregnant women might encounter during conception and delivery, services providers were requested to identify expectant mothers and to refer them to the appropriate health institutions for counselling. He also said refresher courses being organised for service providers would be intensified and other stakeholders would be encouraged to help in the identification exercise. Mr Samuel Evans Ashong Narh, Tema Municipal Chief Executive, condemned men who impregnated women and abandoned them to their fate. He noted that expectant mothers required good health, balanced diet, love and support from their spouses, friends and relatives to enable them go through conception and delivery safely. Mr Narh said the enactment of the health insurance law underscored government’s commitment to ensuring health care for all the people. Dr Cynthia Kwakye, Tema Municipal Director of Health Services, said though most African families valued children, few of them including women appreciated the risks involved in child delivery. She said many women in Africa died more often from pregnancy and childbirth complications than anywhere else in the world adding women faced additional health hazards like HIV/AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases. Dr Kwakye appealed to health workers to get to the grass roots since many women in the rural areas could not access health information from the media because they were illiterate.
