Gulu pleads for birth attendants

By Dennis Ojwee  

Traditional Birth Attendants should not be completely demobilised before government finds a suitable replacement for them, the Dean of Students at Gulu University Sr. Margaret Aceng has said.

 “The Traditional Birth Attendants have been doing something to fill gaps that government could not fill. It might be unfair to just remove them before qualified midwives have been recruited to fill the gap,” Aceng said.

 She made the remarks during a half-day discussion of a research presentation that was carried out by Nairobi-based AMREF researchaers at Palema Crown Hotel in Gulu municipality last Thursday.

Dr. Pamela Godia, a researcher who presented the household base line survey said the research was carried in only three districts of Acholi in northern Uganda, a five-year project to establish the maternal and child health care situation in northern Uganda.

The research was carried in Kitgum, Pader and Gulu from November and December 2011. Godia said the objectives of the survey to help to deploy and attempt to reduce specific issues affecting the maternal and child health care, antenatal care and child mortality rate in northern Uganda by the year 2015.

 The report shows that there was general under-staffing of the health workers, and their motivation, inadequate drugs and vaccines, poor security of health workers in rural and night hours from their places of work among others.

 Part of the research also indicated that the issues of gender was being misunderstood and misrepresented among the communities where the survey was conducted.

The research also discovered that in the few areas visited in the three districts, there was too poor road network making it difficult for the communities to access medical or health services, especially during the rainy seasons. The situations were similar in Kitgum where cases of inadequate medicines were either delayed or missing many rural health centers.

The survey identified stigma associated with HIV/AIDS positive mothers still breast-feeding their children even after the recommended one year.