Minister Opendi decries high maternal deaths

Health minister, Sarah Opendi. Photo/File

The Minister of State for General Duties in the health ministry, Sarah Opendi has expressed concern over the high number of women who continue to die due to child birth related causes.

Opendi noted that although a recent survey showed progress in maternal and infant mortality, there is no reason why mothers still die when they are bringing forth lives.

According to the 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey(UDHS), the maternal mortality ratio is at 336/100,000 per live births down from 438/100,000 live birth in 2011.

Infant mortality rate also reduced from 54/1,000 per live births in 2011 to 43/1,000 and under-5 mortality rate from 90 in 2011 to 64 currently.

"This is very commendable. However, it remains a concern that we continue to have mothers dying while giving life and we need to bring the figure to less than five," she stated.

She noted that some of the challenges why Uganda has not done so well on maternal health include a weak health system as well as inadequate human resources for health, especially for reproductive health.
 
Opendi made the remarks on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of the Eastern Africa Reproductive Health Network (EARHN) coordination meeting at Imperial Royale in Kampala.

The meeting organised by the Partners for Population in Development Africa Regional Office aimed at, among other things,  having a common understanding of the reproductive health and family planning situation and challenges in the Eastern Africa countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Ethiopia

Opendi reiterated her stand on the need to ensure access to family planning methods saying it would prevent unwanted pregnancies.  According to the UDHS, the unmet need for family planning is at 28%.

"Our reproductive health and family planning services remain mainly urban-based yet the majority of our women are in rural areas, some of them quite remote with poor accessibility.  Yet we must do all we can to ensure that women do not die so needlessly," Opendi explained.

The UNFPA country representative Alain Sibenaler concurred that family planning is the key driver of all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

"Investment in family planning will impact on indicators for human rights including gender equality, maternal, new born, child and adolescent health, hence shaping the economic development of individual countries while serving the environment," said Sibenaler.

Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, the director of the director general of the National Population Council appealed to stakeholders to draw lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia which he said had made tremendous gains in reproductive health and family planning indicators.

"We can't be complacent because mothers and children continue to die," said Musinguzi.