FREE MARTERNAL CARE: AN ORGANIC VENOM AGAINST POVERTY STRICKEN SOCIETIES

In early part of last year, the creative and strategic NPP government enforced an intervention program into actuality, which sought to diminish a daring monstrosity of high maternal mortality rate in the country, Ghana. Many pregnant women were losing their lives and some babies too; this implies that lots of the Nation's human resources were narrowing their pathway to the opened jaws of the grave, a situation totally unacceptable. For example, it is estimated that more than half a million women die through child birth each year, a situation pitched on developing countries. It was and is still a timely interventional program the NPP government embarked on whiled in office not forgetting the unflinching support of the UK government. Though this program is timely and has good prospect, I believe that it treats the symptoms of the problem and not the causes.

I country where food prices are sky rocketing everyday, a pregnant woman from a poverty stricken home can not afford adequate food she needs to go through a safe delivery process. It is not untrue that one of the groups of people who inflate the food requirement budget of a household is pregnant women. A pregnant woman feeds herself as well as the child in the womb; hence she needs to take in a lot of food rich in micro-nutrients like Vitamins A, Iron, Iodine, Zinc, and others. This strengthens her as well as the unborn child and when this are missing the unborn can suffer major deformities after birth. A pregnant woman needs Carbohydrates and proteins for the development blood cells and energy. But, since proteins are more expensive than Carbohydrates and she has not enough money to acquire the essentials proteins she needs, a forceful alternative is unavoidable; more Carbohydrates will be preferred in order to save money for other things equally important. In cases of secondary malnutrition, the situation becomes even worse. Where a pregnant mother cannot absorb the nutrients requires from the food she eats due to diseases she might be infected with and or loses some of this nutrients to parasites residing her body.

The point I am establishing is that the free maternal care gift is rather going to inflate the cost of other pandemonic issues affecting the nation. Since the few instances sited above suggest that the solution to the high maternal mortality rate is not the free health care services offered the pregnant woman, let us now tackle the causes of the problem and not the symptoms. Besides, let us also look at the kind of negative consequences that will result from this intervention.

Among many Ghanaian societies where the number of children one has determines the respect accorded him, many illiterates in the rural areas will embark on child bearing spree. Their wives will receive free maternal care, when their children start primary school, they will enjoy a free feeding initiative, and at that same level of primary education they will enjoy free education. The resultant effect is an uncontrollable escalation of the population, which can have significant impact, negatively, on food security as well as moral security. The reason is that many illiterates in poor families will begin to feel unconcerned about their inability to control their desire to have more children because by political power everything is becoming free. What is the good but the bad news about many children born to a nation with poor economic and education polices? When population swells in the country, now we are over 23 million in Ghana, there will be a lot of cheap but unskilled labor since we even lack the proper educational structures and policies to give our own people meaningful education. So that notion of a cheap labor attracting a lot of investors will still be a myth because investors will realize that they might end up spending more money to train up employees than they might invest.

Free maternal care fulfills moral ethics, but let's looks at it this way; will this initiative increase utility or decrease utility? When babies are successfully born to insensitive and uneducated fathers and when illiterate and socially weak mothers are retained in the position where they can make more babies into poor societies that practice superstitious philosophies, what do you think will happen to the nation of Ghana? Armed robbery cases will escalate, corruption will satisfy the revisionist's position as well as the systemic concept of the act, bribery will be a stigma not only on the police, murder will be the alternative to silence a man who wants to protect the goods that are being extorted from him without mercy. In this instance the survival of the fittest will be clearer. Free maternal care though looks promising has more consequences, it must not be free but rather unqualified health personnel must be disposed, old medical equipment must be relegated to oblivion, lift facilities must always be functioning in all the hospitals without waiting for the reaction of the health minister. The solution is not the free health care, food must be available, abundant; food must be accessible by all, cheap; food must be adequate containing of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA); nutritious. These are some of the things that will strengthen women to have a safe delivery in the hospitals and will appreciate the more, services they paid for.

Fidel Y. Tetteh.-Modernghana.com
Development / Accra / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com