Washington Post Examines Maternal Mortality Rates In Developing Countries
Main Category: Women's Health / GynecologyAlso Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Article Date: 15 Oct 2008 - 8:00 PDT
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The Washington Post on Sunday examined the high rates of maternal mortality in some developing countries -- an issue that "rarely gets attention from international donors." According to the Post, more than 500,000 women worldwide die annually in childbirth -- about one every minute -- usually from causes that could be prevented with basic medical care, such as bleeding, infection, obstructed labor and preeclampsia. Maternal mortality often does not receive attention from international donors because they focus resources on fighting other global health issues like tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria, according to the Post. Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, said that maternal death is "an almost invisible death."
According to the United Nations, Sierra Leone has the highest rate of maternal mortality worldwide, and a woman living in the country has a one in eight chance of dying in childbirth. Ireland has the lowest rate, with a one in 48,000 chance of a woman dying in childbirth, while the U.S. has a rate of one in 4,800. High rates of maternal mortality in developing countries often are due to a lack of skilled health care providers, inadequately equipped hospitals and widespread poverty that prevents many families from affording medications.
Betsy McCallon of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood said that many countries' cultures and traditions typically give less worth to a woman's life than a man's, an issue that "really reflects the way women are not valued in many societies." She added that "there is not that sense of demand that this is unacceptable, so it continues to happen." The Post piece profiled Fatmata Jalloh, an 18-year-old woman in Sierra Leone who died eight hours after giving birth because of postpartum hemorrhaging (Sullivan, Washington Post, 10/12).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA
13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/125513.php>
APA
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/125513.php.
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Visitor Opinions In Chronological Order (2)
Fixing Healthcare In Sierra Leone
posted by George T. Roberts on 26 Oct 2008 at 9:27 pmIt was distressing to read of the risks of pregnancy and high maternal mortality in Sierra Leone, especially to this Sierra Leonean.
The problems that lead to these high rates of maternal deaths, are not particularly complex. Consequently, the solutions are likewise fairly straightforward. The article confirms that the dismal statistics are the results of poverty. The pregnant woman, who has no access to pre-natal care, is so deprived because she is poor and cannot afford the direct cost of the required medical care and its ancillaries such as transportation costs. Such a woman is almost certain to run into trouble during labour and the immediate post-partum period.
The lack of easy access to support services such as safe blood transfusion is also a result of poverty that leads to shortages in suitably trained personnel for running and maintaining a functional service. Nearly every other aspect of medical care delivery in a country like Sierra Leone is compromised by this endemic poverty and the governments’ inability to find the necessary funds to provide services.
More than two decades ago, the Bamako declaration acknowledged that African governments were unlikely to be capable of providing and sustaining a viable public health service through public funds, and recommended that user fees be charged at the point of use, to recover the costs associated with providing the service. This ‘cost recovery’ system has become the guiding philosophy driving the Government of Sierra Leone’s health policy. However, the system is supposed to be able to make exemptions for vulnerable groups and for those conditions which, on public health grounds, warranted exemptions. Thus, infants and school-going children, as well as pregnant women and lactating mothers and the elderly are supposedly exempt. But, as your article shows, this policy is failing massively.
What, therefore, to do? The free market healthcare option is obviously not the solution, as the cost-recovery system, a variant thereof is already failing; the majority of the populace cannot afford the relatively large fees they are confronted with when they are in need. An alternative is for the government to seriously reconsider going back to the colonial legacy of a centrally funded service. But for this, the source of the funds remains problematic since the government has been unable or unwilling to raise revenue.
However, I believe the government should be capable of improving its revenue collection if it was ready to do so. There is considerable evidence in the country now that an efficient and collection regime can be introduced and sustained; the National Social Security Insurance Trust, NASSIT, has been collecting money for years and has now become massively funded. Also, more recently, local councils have shown that they too, can get their residents to pay local taxes using various methods of inducement. Thus, there is no reason why a similarly minimally indexed health tax or insurance premium cannot be negotiated and collected into a properly run health care trust that can fund basic care, free for all at the point of use. Those World Bank and other international donor conditionalities that proscribe this kind of government intervention are misguided and have really not served Africa well. And now, as we are seeing, the free market, even in the west, is failing its citizens and causing international chaos.
Whats up
posted by jofcnd on 9 Jan 2011 at 10:27 pmYou know, I've got to say that you have got a really valid point there.
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