Hospitals in Volta Region asked to take maternal deaths seriously

Mr Robert Adatsi, the Acting Volta Regional Director of Clinical Care of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has appealed to hospitals in the region to refrain from “trivializing maternal deaths”.

“We are trivializing maternal deaths,” Mr Adatsi said in his comments about the outcome of a Peer Review (PR) exercise conducted at the Volta Regional Hospital in Ho.

The Hospital scored 58.2 percent overall down from 61.4 percent in 2009.  The exercise looked at the Hospital’s clinical practices, management, emergency services and systems, infection prevention and control, occupational and health and safety issues, client care and quality assurance.

Mr Adatsi said the Regional Hospital was expected to play a lead role in helping the Regional Health Directorate to develop local protocols and guidelines for quality health delivery in the region.

He said previous PR exercises in hospitals in the region including the one conducted at the Regional Hospital on Thursday showed “no meaningful explanations” for maternal deaths on folders that could provide useful information towards taking preventive measures against such deaths.

Mr Adatsi said overall the PR exercises showed very significant improvements in the external environments in the hospitals but their internal environments were not up to scratch.

He said there were gaps in emergency preparedness as well as infection prevention and control.

Dr George Acquaye, the Medical Director of the Volta Regional Hospital, said the exercise was worthwhile as it drew the attention of both management and staff to a number of issues which seemed to have been overlooked.

“We will start from the scratch, we can improve if we put our hearts to it”, he said.

Source: GNA