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Maternal, Child Mortality Drops In Rivers
There are strong indications that the menace of maternal and child mortality are in decline in Rivers State.
The revelation was made by a consultant gynecologist and fellow of West African College of Surgeon with the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Dr Douglas Pepple at a media interactive forum organised by Silver Bird Communications in Port Harcourt.
Dr Pepple while quoting World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics averred that prior to this time, there were about 1,000 maternal deaths to every 100,000 child delivery.
However, he said at present it has reduced to 800 to every 100,000 child birth in the state, while attributing the development to government increased drive to tackle the menace.
Apart from government efforts, he observed that recent improvements could also be attributed to what he described as, “improvements in health seeking behaviour”, of the residents.
Dr Pepple linked maternal mortality to haemophragae, infections during pregnancy, botched abortions and hypertension related diseases at child birth.
The surgeon opined that those women who seek ante-natal care in medical health facilities have lower risks of maternal deaths than those who consult traditional birth attendants.
He stressed the need for the womenfolk to improve their health seeking behaviour before and during pregnancy as that would curtail maternal mortality.
In her views, Chairperson of the White Ribbon Alliance on Safe Motherhood in the State, Mrs Gloria Boma Harry has attributed the problem of maternal and child mortality to harsh attitude of health care personnel coupled with high medical fees charged by the hospitals.
Mrs Harry argued that this situation discourages pregnant women from patronising medical facilities, as they prefer traditional midwives who would treat them gently at lower fees.
The White Ribbon Alliance Chairperson therefore stressed the need for some medical personnel working in public health facilities to change their harsh attitude towards their patients and treat them mildly in order to cure them.
However, Dr Douglas Pepple said efforts have been beefed-up to check the hostile attitude of some nurses in public hospital towards their patients, noting that the problem cannot be divorced from poor training.
Dr Pepple was of the view that once the problem is addressed through adequate orientation and training, services provided in public hospitals would drastically improve.
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