National forum on maternal mortality opens
The Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health (GCNH) has opened its Fifth Annual National Civil Society Organisation forum to discuss how the country could achieve the MDG goal five by the stipulated date.
The two-day forum which was on the theme: “Attaining MDG 5: let’s wake up”, brought together Civil Society Organisations and key stakeholders in the health sector to reflect on progress made so far towards the attainment of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The scrutiny would, however, be made from Civil Society perspective and also offer an opportunity to make policy recommendations to government towards improving the health outcomes of the country.
Dr Afisa Zakaria, Acting Director, Programme Planning Monitoring and Evaluation, Ministry of Health, said the Ministry places high premium on attaining the MDGs on its agenda and has therefore put in place several strategies and policies to ensure successes in areas such as good nutrition and quality maternal health care in the country.
She said the Ministry is improving upon existing structures and capacities such as the training of more midwives to handle maternal health issue building partnerships especially with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Community-Based Organisations as well as Public-Private partnerships in health care.
She said that although a lot of efforts have been made over the years to reduce the rate of maternal mortality, very little results has been achieved.
According to Dr Zakaria said there was the need to approach the problem holistically, with the health sector collaborating effectively with all stakeholders, most importantly those at the Community levels.
She said people must support and encourage pregnant women to visit antenatal clinics early and throughout their pregnancy term so that both their health and that of their unborn babies would be secured.
Dr Zakaria further called for a change of public attitude towards issues of maternal health, calling on health practitioners to exhibit high professional standards in the cause of their work, to help sustain efforts of reducing the maternal mortality in the country.
Dr Ernest Tei Maya, Senior Specialist, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ridge Regional Hospital in his presentation, said the theme of the forum sounds a wakeup call to policy makers, their partners and all stakeholders on the need to redouble efforts in order to achieve the MDG 5.
He said critical areas such as improved monitoring, implementation, resource allocation, technical support, expanded facility, research and quality maternal health care needed urgent redress in order to propel the wheel faster towards the attainment of the set goal.
He said the maternal mortality rate as captured by both survey and institutional data of the Ministry of Health has although shown an improvement over the past 20 years though the pace has been slow.
He said between 1990 and 2005, the maternal mortality rate reduced from 740 deaths per 100,000 live births to 451 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2008 according to the 2010 MDG Report.
This trend is also supported by institutional data which suggests that maternal deaths per 100,000 live births has declined from 224 deaths per 100,000 in 2007 to 210 deaths per 100,000 in 2008, after an increase from 187 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2004 to 197 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006.
Dr Maya said without effective implementation and monitoring to accelerate the progress the current trend continues, maternal mortality would be reduced to only 340 per 100,000 live births instead of the MDG target of 185 deaths per 100,000 live births by the year 2015.
He said influencing policy on health issues, especially improved maternal mortality and sexual reproductive health in any form would be of immense benefit to the people at various levels of society and also key in achieving the health related MDGs.
He said one way of creating this influence is by building consensus of all actors in the health sector as to the present gaps and what would be required to manage or fill these shortfalls in delivering quality and equitable healthcare to all.
Ms Cecilia Senoo, Vice-Chairperson, GCNH, the Coalition over the years have adopted the Annual CSO health forum as a platform for the building of national consensus between CSOs and the government on how to deal with the country’s health challenges.
She said the forum also presents an opportunity for CSOs to make suggestions to the State on local health challenges that may be eluding the health authorities by virtue of their remoteness to various parts of the country.
This year’s focus was to get government and development partners to demonstrate extra commitment to improving maternal health by providing a sustainable funding to the sub-sector, she said.
Stakeholders would deliberate on critical issues that cause hindrances to the improvement of health delivery in Ghana and how health service providers could improve their response to meeting consumer needs and satisfaction.
Ms Senoo said the forum would also make recommendations to the government on how to stimulate participatory policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation towards the improvement of quality health for all in Ghana.
Source: GNA