Free medical care for pregnant women- A welcome support

Article: Salome Donkor
BEING pregnant could be exciting for every child-bearing woman. But some cannot forget the traumatic experience they go through either before childbirth, during labour, or soon after delivery.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) more than half a million women die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth every year - that's one death every minute and in Africa, this means one woman in 16 dies.
In Ghana when a woman delivers safely, we wish her well and in Akan, we say “wo tri nkwa” to her which literally means "well done you have survived". Women who have gone through childbirth will agree that this is because childbirth is a matter of life or death for women in Ghana and other developing countries.
Although maternal deaths are rare in the West, yet countries like Ghana records 500 deaths per 100,000 live births each year due to maternal related causes.
Some of the mothers die from complications in pregnancy or childbirth, not because there are no health facilities, but simply because they could not afford the cost of health care.
Even though the country operates a health insurance scheme, most of the women have not registered with the scheme, while delay to reach the service delivery centre, due to poor roads, delay at the service delivery centre due to shortage of personnel as a result of mass exodus of qualified health personnel and lack of materials, have compounded the problem.
Reducing child mortality and improving maternal health and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, by 2015 are some of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which form a blueprint agreed on by all the world’s countries and the world’s leading development institutions at the United Nations Conference in New York in 2000.
Other goals are achieving universal primary education, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.
Working towards the attainment of these goals has necessitated calls on various governments to take practical steps such as equipping hospitals, providing maternal health services, training more health personnel and educating our men and women to make informed choices in relation to reproductive health, to reduce maternal deaths .
It is for this reason that a number of women from all walks of life comprising women’s groups drawn from the financial sector, educational institutions, security services, as well as health services and religious and civil service groups from all parts of the country, led by the Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama, thronged the Castle recently to express their gratitude to President J.A Kufuor.
This was as a result of the President’s role of securing a grant from the British Government for the operation of a free medical policy for pregnant women in the country.
The policy was supported by a pledge from the British Government to donate £42.5 million to support the health sector.
The pledge was made following bilateral talks held by the President with the British Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, about the country’s high maternal mortality rates, during an international conference on public and private sector co-operation for the attainment of the MDGs in London, attended by President Kufuor.
The Press Secretary to the President Mr Andrew Awuni, who briefed newsmen on behalf of President Kufuor, shortly after his arrival in Accra was reported to have said that the free medical care for pregnant women represented part of the government’s effort to reduce maternal mortality and achieve targets set by the MDGs.
Consequently, President J.A. Kufuor has directed the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service to work out the modalities for the effective implementation of the programme.
When contacted to elaborate on the policy, the Government Spokesperson on Social Service, Mr Kofi Amponsah Bediako said although a free medical care for pregnant women and children below age five had been in operation over the years, lack of funds constrained the implementation of the policy.
He said the system, which was initially operated in the three northern regions and the Central Region and then extended to all parts of the country, had not been very effective, adding that the British grant will enable health facilities to provide free medical care for pregnant women for 14 years.
Mr Amponsah Bediako indicated that the money would be disbursed to primary and secondary health institutions in the country under the Ghana Health Service (GHS), as well as the Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals.
He said the GHS would design modalities for the implementation of the policy to pregnant women who went to these health facilities, enjoy free anti-natal, post-natal and delivery care.
The Convenor of the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, said although the British grant for free medical care for pregnant women is laudable, it is necessary to critically examine the government’s current policy on reproductive health.
She said there is the need for an effective reproductive health policy for all women, especially, the most poor in the rural areas who have difficulty accessing health care in the rural areas and to also cater for the special needs of disabled women.
Dr Mensah-Kutin said there were many components of women’s reproductive health and called for a comprehensive and accessible health care delivery system that will address issues of safe motherhood, adolescent reproductive health and maternal and infant health.
A Community Health Nurse in a Rural community in the Eastern Region, Madam Nora Kwapong, said maternal deaths can be prevented if women were able to plan well for their pregnancy - to get physically fit and have medical check-ups in advance.
She said expectant women must be educated on their health, nutrition, hygiene, family planning and birth control to enable them space their children to allow them to regain their strength after each childbirth.
Speaking at the celebrated this year’s International Nurses Day of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association in Accra recently, the President of the association, Mrs Alice Darkoa Asare-Allotey rightly acknowledged that the health care sector had been bedevilled with challenges.
She mentioned such some of the challenges as poverty, increased globalization, climate change, food shortage and political unrest all of which affected health and service planning.
She further touched on critical challenges such as rising cost of health care, increasing consumer expectations and demands, changing demographic and ageing populations, the surge in chronic diseases and shortage of nurses and other health workers.
While providing free health care for expectant mothers, there is the need to educate women to ensure that they make informed decisions on when to seek help without waiting endlessly for the man to come back from work before the woman is taken to the hospital.
Secondly, services like good roads, clean hospitals and trained hospital staff can also help. Health care providers also need to critically re-examine their ways and forge new partnerships and methods for meeting the challenges of building their professional capacities for the improvement of the health sector.