KADE HOSPITAL SENSITISES TBAs, NURSING MOTHERS ... (Page 20)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

IN line with its programme of reducing maternal deaths and infant mortality in the Kwaebibirem District, the Kade Government Hospital has organised a programme to sensitise the public to the issue of maternal deaths and infant mortality.
It brought together, traditional birth attendants (TBAs), expectant women, nursing mothers, chiefs and opinion leaders drawn from all parts of the district, especially villages and hamlets situated far away from health centres.
The participants, who were schooled on the various ways of preventing maternal deaths and infant mortality by doctors and nurses, in turn narrated the difficulties they encountered in saving the lives of women and newly born babies.
Addressing the participants, the Kwaebibirem District Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Amo Mensah, expressed concern about the issue in the area which recorded 27 maternal mortalities in 2005, out of which 12 were caused by abortions.
He said the following year, 14 people also died from abortion-related cases and four from anaemia, while in 20007, 16 deaths were recorded, two of which were caused by abortion and six by severe anaemia cases during pregnancy.
Dr Amo Mensah stated that in order to reverse the trend, his outfit had to organise the programme to educate the public on the problem, especially on the need for pregnant women to register with the district mutual health insurance scheme (DMHIS) which currently had only 114 members.
He also expressed concern about the ages of pregnant women in the area, which ranged from as low as 18 to as high as 40, and asked relatives to send cases involving pregnant women and infants to the clinics on time.
While advising the TBAs to refer medical cases beyond their control to the hospital on time, he also appealed to pregnant women to attend antenatal care regularly with their husbands, and also sleep in insecticide treated nets.
The district director of the GHS implored nursing mothers to breastfeed their newly born babies exclusively for six months and also send them for weighing and immunisation regularly.
The Eastern Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Ebenezer Appiah Denkyira, gave an overview of the maternal and infant deaths situation in the region, stressing that many of them could be prevented if the victims were sent to the hospital on time.
He, therefore, appealed to the communities to ensure that such cases were not delayed at home, only to be sent to the hospital at the eleventh hour and in hopeless situations.