High maternal death rate irks Janet

Jan 30, 2003

First Lady Janet Museveni has said rural women continue dying in large numbers during childbirth because traditional birth attendants and health workers are not trained in safe motherhood techniques.

First Lady Janet Museveni has said rural women continue dying in large numbers during childbirth because traditional birth attendants and health workers are not trained in safe motherhood techniques, reports Lillian Nalumansi.

She was on Wednesday speaking at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel where she was a guest of honour at the launching of a programme to monitor the survival of mothers and newborn babies in the country.

“The plight of African societies start with sick mothers who end up giving birth to sick babies. We should focus more on community health centres than hospitals because the vast majority of births in Africa take place at home. Training programmes should target birth attendants and health workers because giving birth at home is not bad, but the way it is done,” Janet said.

It was organised by USAID and the Population Secretariat whose director Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, said 505 mothers out of every 100,000 die annually during childbirth.

He said one of the major causes of deaths was the poor handling of the delivery process by traditional birth attendants and health workers.

Dr. Cokie from the American-based Policy Project, who with the Population Secretariat did the research, said delay in attendance at rural health centres contributed to the the high death rates.

State ministers for health and entandikwa Mike Mukula, Grace Akello attended the function.

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