Ghana's current maternal mortality rate is 310 out of 100,000 live births – Dr Srofenyoh

Dr Emmanuel Srofenyoh, Medical Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge) says the current maternal mortality rate in Ghana was 310 per 100,000 live births

He said the figure is above the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) accepted standard of 70 out of 100,000 live births attributing majority of maternal deaths to bleeding during or after childbirth.

Dr Srofenyoh, also a Consultant Obstetrician Gynecologist shared the statistics when he launched the 2022 Ghana Insurance Industry Blood Donation Campaign and urged the public to voluntarily donate blood to help stock the National Blood Bank

The Insurance Industry Blood Donation Campaign, an initiative of the National Insurance Commission was started last year and the NIC has declared August as the blood donation month.

This year's campaign is on the theme: “Donate Blood, Save a life: as You Do It for Someone, You Do It for Yourself.”

Dr Srofenyoh said although the country needed 310,000 pints of blood annually, the blood bank could only supply 169,000 pints through blood donations and family replacement, leaving a shortfall of 141,000 pints of blood.

Making an appeal for continuous voluntary blood donation, he said women in labour, children, trauma and accident victims and cancer patients needed blood to survive.

Dr. Shirley Owusu-Ofori, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Blood Service (NBS) said the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended rate for blood adequacy ratio was 10 units per 1000 people, however, Ghana had only 5.7 units of 1000 people.

She said per the W.H.O recommendation, if one per cent of the country’s population donated blood, there would be enough blood at the various hospitals in the country.

Thus Ghana needs about 320,000 people, constituting one per cent of the population to donate blood, but there are only about 170,000 donors.

Dr. Justice Ofori, the Commissioner of Insurance, said the blood donation campaign is a commitment of the insurance industry players in the country to save lives.

He said as part of the programme last year, the insurance industry players across the country donated 802 units of blood to help stock the blood banks.

Dr Justice Ofori said this year’s blood donation exercise would be done throughout the country and expect to generate more pints of blood.

GNA