Mobile clinics to reduce maternal and child deaths

from IPP Media

By Correspondent Christopher Magola

At least 578 out of every 100,000 expectant women die of pregnancy-related complications in Tanzania every year while the number of newborns dying is 144 per 1,000 live births.

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare every year 8,100 mothers die due to child birth related cases and pregnancy complications and that a total of 157,000 children die due to preventable conditions.

To address the situation the Government has launched a National Road Map Strategic Plan to accelerate reduction of maternal, newborn and child deaths in Tanzania (2008-2015).

The Plan was officially launched by President Jakaya Kikwete during a recent visit to Tanzania by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

The plan includes introduction of mobile clinics to help bring health services closer to the people noting that 53 per cent of all newborns in the country are delivered outside conventional hospitals, dispensaries, clinics and health centres.

The mobile clinics system was earlier announced by President Kikwete during this year\'s White Ribbon Day whose theme was ``Stop needless maternal, newborn and child deaths during and after birth. It is possible``.

Under the mobile clinics system, pregnant women and children would have to report to nearby health centres, where they would be picked up by an ambulance, an ordinary vehicle or a motorcycle and rushed straight to hospital.

These mobile clinics stand to help reduce maternal and newborn deaths, as most pregnant women will give birth under the close supervision of medical specialists.

Launching the plan, President Kikwete said in order to achieve the objective of the plan, the government was committed to ensure the health sector received adequate funds in the next budget, which he said could increase to 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the present 10.1 per cent.

During this year`s White Ribbon Day, marked on March 25, the National Coordinator of The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood in Tanzania, WRATZ, Rose Mlay, called on the government to give the health sector a budget big enough to redress the awful situation of maternal and child deaths in the country, especially in rural areas.

The underlining causes of preventable maternal deaths are many, but there were three areas that stand out as critical problems.

These are lack of access to skilled attendance at birth and poor quality of essential obstetric care, poor referral mechanisms and lack of awareness of danger signs of obstetric emergence.

The government has made efforts to reduce maternal deaths and of newborns as spelt out in the country`s Poverty Reduction Strategy and a broader Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

As part of the efforts, Tanzania has adopted the national roadmap on reduction of maternal deaths and newborns from the grassroots to the national levels.

The plan aims at improving the quality of services in health facilities by upgrading the skills of service providers, provide essential equipment and supplies to health centres in Tanzania.

Minister for Health and Social Welfare Professor David Mwakyusa has said under the strategy, the government will improve family planning and clinic services, improve and expand services at referral hospitals, provide important equipment needed during delivery and increase the number of health sector graduates.

White Ribbon Alliance national co-ordinator Rose Mlay has explained that the acute shortage of specialists at most health centres in rural areas was causing havoc on the lives and health of mothers and newborns.

At the launch of The Tanzania Benjamin William Mkapa National HIV/AIDS Fellows Program in 2006, it was reported that human resources capacity has been identified as one of the most significant challenges in scaling up access to Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs) in Tanzania over the next five years.

Staffing levels at primary health care facilities in Tanzania are only 30 percent of requirement of qualified professionals.

``Total health staff requirement in regions and districts is 60,320 but only 39,206 are available, hence a shortfall of 21,114 health professionals`` reads part of a report issued by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare recently.

According to the report, the health workforce crisis in Tanzania needed a robust intervention in training, retraining and recruiting health staff accompanied with a conducive working environment for all medical staff.

WRATZ says that one woman dies every hour in pregnancy-related complications and that only 46 percent of women deliver with a skilled birth attendant.

President Kikwete, however, has stressed that the government would continue to build dispensaries and health centres up to the ward level, while it was also working out a plan to address the shortage of medical personnel.

Statistics show that although 90 percent of pregnant women attend clinics, only 47 per cent give birth at health centres.

Therefore, efforts should be done to offer education the best way of child delivery among expectant girls and women right from a household to community levels.