Did you know that maternal mortality rates (MMR) are an issue of concern and that Kenya is not going to be achieving the millennium development goal five (MDG5). About 360 women in 2010 out of 100,000 women died due to pregnancy related complications in Kenya. This figure has risen and is currently headed to about 500 women dying each year due to pregnancy complications. I do understand that we are a developing country with our own challenges but how do we tackle this problem?
The government is indeed taking this problem seriously and recently a bill was passed for free maternity services throughout the country and indeed this is a step in the right direction. Dr Boniface Chitayi does agree and states that 'the promise of free maternity services and free health services at the
health centre and dispensary level is a huge boost to the march towards
universal health access.' (Chitayi, 2013)
Will women really take advantage of these services? Will the MMR rates go down? I guess we will find out.
References
Chitayi B., 2013. Kenya: Delivering Free Maternity Is an Uphill Task retrieved from http://allafrica.com/stories/201304171448.html on 26th June 2013
People are dying more due to pregnancy complications compared to 23 years ago. It was safer to be pregnant 23 years ago...
ReplyDeleteWe do not have the infrastructure. Imagine this, 23 years ago you could get value from any government hospitals and dispensaries. Today its a hell hole. No services, no h2o, no medicine, no basic equipments, nothing nothing yet a big percentage of Kenyans rely on such. As a result more and more maternal deaths. Could the devolved government solve this? We are yet to see!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is even with the governments promise of more hospitals, will they be able to hire more nurses? What happens to locations that are too remote... The government also needs to understand that if a woman had a successful birth with a Traditional Birth Attendant(TBA) the first time, then there is a chance she will go back to that woman. Why not empower the TBA as well?
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