Miatta Kargbo, health minister
By Bampia James Bundu
Health and Sanitation Minister, Miatta Kargbo, has described the current maternal mortality ratio given by a UN World Health Organisation on Sierra Leone as “unacceptably high and cannot be used to assess the impact of the free health care initiative ”.
It followed the ranking last week of her country as the worst in the world in maternal deaths.
Speaking yesterday at a joint press conference by WHO, the UN population fund and the ministry of health, Kargbo said the report showed that Sierra Leone had a mortality ratio of 1,100 maternal deaths per every 100,000 lives birth, adding that it was an improvement from the last UN maternal mortality ratio report of about 1,614 maternal deaths per every 100,000 live births.
She revealed that her ministry, together with the UNFPA and WHO were presently working on plans to ensure quality service delivery in order to address the high maternal mortality and other impact related indicators “to show improvement in health service delivery”.
She observed that the free health care initiative had led to an increase in skilled birth attendants, institutional deliveries, uptake and improvement in family planning services, antenatal and postnatal care, and had generally strengthened the health system.
She assured that the impact on the reduction in maternal deaths would be observed in the near future, as her ministry and its partners were doubling and fast-tracking their efforts to further strengthen their intervention and methods, to ensure progress in the country’s health sector.
UNFPA Representative, Dr. Bannet Ndyanabangi, explained that the war in Sierra Leone was one of the major reasons for the high ration, adding that collapse of health institutions had left almost nothing to build on. He admitted that the figures in maternal deaths were still high, “but efforts are still underway to ensure its reduction”.
WHO Representative, Dr. Jacob Mufunda, said the government was doing “extremely well” to ensure they restructured the sector and introduced new systems and patterns.
“There is still need for government to do more, so as to tackle maternal deaths in the country”, he said.
(C) Politico 13/05/14
