One main component of curbing Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR)under the Millenium Development Goal(MDG5)set by the United Nations in 1990, is to attain universal reproductive health by 2015 as well as reducing by three quarter the MMR. By this target,every woman especially pregnant women irrespective of their location must have access to antenatal and post natal care. That is, women who rely on orthodox and traditional way of meeting their health needs will all embrace skilled and professional health care delivery.
In view of this, several projects have been laid down since Ghana signed the Charter including advocacy programs to ensure more women turn to the clinics and hospitals when the need be.
However the recent missing baby saga at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi may pose a threat to this target as women seems to be loosing confidence in professional health care. The out break of this story has sparked conversation about how patients are treated in some of these hospital. Everyone we interviewed seems to have a bitter experience one way or the other.
What makes the situation worrying is that each story told reveals gross neglect on the parts some of these trained and skilled health personnel who should know better...one common complained shared was the bad manners and harsh tone some nurse use when talking to patients.
In most of these public hospitals, the rights of pregnant women are often relegated to the background. she is denied the right of having a company be it a friend or a relative in the delivery room with the excuse that there are no enough room to accommodate any guest. This kind of situation gives rooms for suspicion in still birth and other complications.
Contrary to what happens in private clinics, patients are treated with outermost care and respect because it is usually the rich who visit such clinics. Ironically, majority of the workers in these private clinics have second jobs in the public centers but creates different environment for patients.
So those who can not afford these expensive clinics are left at the mercy of such unprofessional nurses who are dragging the name of this noble profession into the mud.
In 2010, Ghana recoreded 350 dead cases out of 100,000 live birth from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management excluding accidental or incidental causes. This is according to CIA world factbook. Comparing to the developed world, a woman's life time risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 3800. Being pregnant in the developed world doesn't pose much risk because, access to health is made available to all without any discrimination.
RECAP
The Ministry of Health has directed the doctor and nurse under whose supervision a still-born baby was declared missing to proceed on leave.
The unfortunate incident which took place at the Akomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi about two weeks ago was triggered when a Muslim lady by name Suwaiba put to birth in the said hospital and demanded for the body of her baby after she was told it was a still- birth.
The inability of the hospital officials to produce the corps of Suwaiba's dead baby reportedly led to someyouth from the Muslim community(zongo youths) taking the law into their own hands, invading the hospital and subsequently assaulting some of the health workers.
The doctors and nurses in anger and in fear of further attacks withdrew their services for about a week. They returned only after several appeals and promises of increased police presence to secure the hospital and their private homes.
Suwaiba allegedly demanded the body of her baby in order to bury him in accordance with her Islamic traditions but all efforts to retrieve the body proved futile although she had earlier been made to thumb print a document confirming the death of her baby..
According to some nurses at the KATH, an orderly, hired only two weeks before the incident, picked the baby with instructions to take it to the morgue but a search at the mortuary revealed the body had not been deposited there. Nurses say the orderly initially claimed he incinerated the body of the baby but the hospital authorities have denied the claim saying the incinerator had not been used in several days.
The Kumasi Police after some investigations are reported to have arrested seven unidentified people believed to be staff of the same hospital with stealing and conspiracy to steal a baby. The Hospital authorities have promised to liaise with the police to get to the bottom of the matter.
