Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Dr Peter Mwaba has disclosed that although Government was working tirelessly to reduce High Maternal Mortality rate in the country, the number of women dying during Childbirth was still high in Zambia with over 3 000 women dying each year.
Speaking at Taj-Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka today during the workshop organised by the Ministry of Health and NGO Partners to highlight the efforts aimed at addressing life threatening bleeding of Women during Childbirth mostly in Zambia’s rural communities, Dr Mwaba said more than half of births in Zambia took place at home leading to a high number of Women dying during labour.
ZANIS reports that Dr Mwaba disclosed that it was for this reason that the Ministry of Health had partnered with a Non Government organizations called Venture Strategies Innovations based in the United States of America to look into issues related to the prevention of Postpartum Hemorrhage project initiated in five rural Districts in Zambia.
He said the Ministry of Health had demonstrated its’ firm commitment to improving women’s access to safe delivery care and that it had since introduced Misoprostol tablets for a safe , effective , affordable and easy to use solution to one of the leading killer of women, excessive bleeding during child birth.
He said the Misoprostol for Postpartum Hemorrhage Prevention Dissemination Meeting Workshop provided a platform to share results of this project as well as findings from Society for Family Health’s programme results of qualitative Assessment.
The Permanent Secretary thanked the United states based Non Government Organisation, Venture Strategies Innovations for technical and financial support that had seen the Ministry introducing the project in five selected districts in Zambia namely, Kalomo (Western), Kapiri Mposhi (Central), Masaiti (Copperbelt), Mungwi (Northern) and Petauke in the Eastern Province.
He said the project sought to demonstrate the feasibility of distributing Misoprostol through antenatal Care (ANC) visits, in conjunction with community awareness activities on birth preparedness and prevention.
” At the outset of the project, providers from participating District Health Management Teams were trained as Trainers and Subsequently trained antenatal Care (ANC) providers in the project protocol” said Dr Mwaba.
He said the programme started in January 2009 with training of health care providers and distribution of Misoprostol tablets to pregnant women attending antenatal care.
Dr Mwaba also stated that the workshop will also serve as a forum to solidify what the partners will do to insure Zambian Mothers continue to have access to safe delivery education and protection.
ZANI
When did Kalomo become part of Wetern province? Simple Social studies and Zambian Geography shows that Kalomo is in Southern province.
govt serious efforts means letting Kapoko pocket money meant to reduce child mortality rates.
Mother-baby kits?
These are the real issues we should be looking at and not busy flying around. I expected alot of coments from bloggers but suprisingly we have only two coments.Blogers are busy posting their coments on matters of politics, a sign that given chance to be in gvt, the young blogers will behave more or less like our current politicians!
What efforts is the gvt making? this is all propaganda, to cover up the mess!!!
If indeed efforts have been made, as the minister says, the problem would have been on teh decrease. The message from teh statement basically means: sorry we have not been doing anything, and figures and data do not lie. I read doctors in Luapula province have not been paid their call allowances since July; so what about a poor mother? Do we really deserve this kind of leadership?