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05.05.2015 Health

World Vision intervenes to address maternal mortality

By GNA
World Vision intervenes to address maternal mortality
05.05.2015 LISTEN


Tamale, May 5, (Hajara-Service), GNA - The Parliamentary Select Committee on Health on Tuesday joined officials of World Vision (WV) Ghana to visit the Kpukpalgu community in the Zabzugu District to witness the interventions of WV in preventing maternal mortality in the district.

Mr Hubert Charles, WV National Director speaking at a durbar of chiefs and people of the area said it was necessary to engage government agencies in their projects because their work was to complement the District Health Management Team (DHMT) interventions at the district level that were in line with policies and strategic plan of the government.

He said WV was placing more emphasis on its Child Health Now (CHN) campaign, which also placed much attention on reducing morbidity and mortality from preventable infections and under-nutrition among mothers, new-borns and children less than five years in poor communities.

He said the campaign aimed at supporting the vulnerable and urged government to speed up efforts at working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs 4 and 5) through policy changes on maternal and child health to influence policy implementation to increase access of the poor to quality health services delivery.

He suggested that government should equitably distribute health supplies to all communities and give each region what should be due them and not to give medical supplies to regions that do not need such suppliers immediately to bridge the gap between rural-urban health.

Madam Elizabeth Kopri, Zabzugu District Director of Health said so many women die out of preventable related pregnancy and childbirth, which the rural areas and poorer communities had always recorded higher cases.

She said young adolescent girls faced high risk of complications including deaths as a result of pregnancy than older women and that Zabzugu was leading the Northern Region with regards to fatality rate of under five children.

Madam Kopri said delays in attending health facilities was attributable to most maternal mortalities in the district and explained that delays were as a result of some families refusing to access healthcare, lack of transport and the absence of nearby health facilities as well as lack of trained midwives.

She appealed to World Vision and other stakeholders to come to their aid to help identify the barriers that limits access to quality maternal health services since all their facilities were in deplorable state and also lacked medical equipment to detect and take care of pregnant women.

Mr Joseph Yelieh Chire, chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee commended WV for its various health interventions in the country, which compliments government's efforts at improving healthcare delivery.

He admitted that Kpukpalgu community health facility needed government's intervention and assured that all the concerns raised in the community would be discussed at committee level in Parliament to ensure that all communities with such problems are addressed.

GNA

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