K’bu Maternity Ward project is laudable

04/10/08
Story: Salome Donkor
The revelation by the Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah(rtd) that the country was not winning the war against maternal deaths (Daily Graphic, April 5, 2008) might have touched the hearts of many people, including women in the reproductive age.
This is in view of the fact that the Ghana Demographic Health Survey, 1993 puts the maternal mortality rate in Ghana at 214 per 100,000 live births with a life time risk of one in 35.
Available evidence shows that 75 per cent of these deaths are preventable and that the timely provision of blood transfusion, caesarian section, oxytocin and antibiotic therapy, and the timely management of pre-eclampsia/eclampsia are sufficient to reduce maternal mortality rates by 50 per 100,000 without the need for advanced technology and safe support mechanisms.
Maternal mortality is defined by health experts as the death of a pregnant woman during her pregnancy or within 42 days of pregnancy termination. According to the experts an obstetric emergency is not a situation where the expectant mother involved could be asked to come back the next day, since that can result in her death.
Recently, a high-level panel discussion on reducing maternal mortality in Ghana to ensure that achieving points four and five of the MDGs remains high priority on the national agenda, was held in Accra. It was organised in Accra by the Ministries of Women and Children Affairs and Health, in collaboration with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) as a follow-up to the action plan of a global conference on safe motherhood, that was held in London in October last year.
One of the panellists, Dr Ali Samba, an obstetrician/gyaenacologist at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, spoke about prevailing conditions at the maternity Unit of the hospital. He said being a tertiary and referral hospital, the unit undertook between 10 and 12,000 deliveries a year and recorded 700 to 800 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
He said most cases ended up there late and needing emergency obstetric care, adding that most of the problem arose during labour and they required emergency action. This means the hospital should have all the facilities and equipment needed to provide emergency obstetric care.
However, according to Dr Samba, currently, only one of the three theatres at the department is working and as such, emergency cases have to queue, resulting in the loss of lives.
He most of the time the doctors had to decide which of the emergency cases was more of an emergency and pointed out that “We need a second theatre”.
Some expectant mothers complained that they sometimes make do with benches due to shortage of beds, while mosquitoes decend on them at night, due to poor mosquito nets.
In 2005 the issue of reported figures of maternal mortality in the country touched the hearts of the Women Caucus in Parliament and decided to learn more about the problem.
According to the acting Chairperson of the Caucus, Mrs Gifty Euginea Kusi (MP for Tarkwa Nsuem), the group held a seminar that same year in Accra in collaboration with the Ghana Presentation of Maternal Mortality, based in Korle Bu.
She said they were briefed about the situation at the Korle Bu Maternity Unit and it came out that out of the three theatres at the unit only one was functional, while the remaining two had been rendered non-functional for four years as of 2005.
Mrs Kusi said after the seminar, the women parliamentarians launched the Korle Bu refurbishment fund which yielded ¢400 million (GH¢40,000) made up of ¢100 million cash and ¢300 million in pledges, while letters were sent to organisations for support.
She said one organisation, MTN Ghana Limited resolved to support the programme and although it took some time, the company, had fulfilled its promise following the provision of $600,000 by the MTN Ghana Foundation which was set up by Scancom Limited.
The launch of a programme to commerce the refurbishment of the second floor of the Korle-Bu maternity ward, to facilitate improved health care for women and children , was therefore a dream come true.
Speaking at the launch the Vice President of the International Criminal Court of Justice, Prof Akua Kuenyehia, observed that the health of women was essential to wealth creation in Ghana and pointed out that the health needs of women world-wide and how to solve them posed a problem to every governmente.
She said if all corporate organisations in Ghana would assist government’s efforts by providing assistance in a particular direction such as education, health and others it would be very profitable for the whole nation.
Prof. Kuenyehia advised staff of the department to adopt a culture of maintenance in order to maintain the facility.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed to by world leaders in September 2000, include a specific target of reducing the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters by 2015 but health experts say the situation may not change by 2015 if no drastic measures are taken to reverse the situation.
The initiative by MTN Limited in response to the action taken by the women parliamentarians, is therefore commendable, as in the words of the Corporate Services Executive of MTN, Ms Mawuena Dumor “MTN places a premium on social investment as core aspects of our business with emphasis on social matters of national importance”.
High maternal mortality rate in Ghana is a concern to reproductive health rights advocates and clearly there is the need to find out what can be done differently to save women from dying from pregnancy-related complications.