Health

Mzimba maternal health horror

Kwataine:Conditions deplorable
Kwataine:Conditions deplorable

Shortage of maternity waiting homes is putting pressure on maternity wards, writes our reporter MARTHA SANDE.

Mzimba District Hospital maternity wing tells a sad tale of overcrowding.

The 36-bed ward now sleeps 140 pregnant women.

Most of these women cover very long distances to wait at the hospital, weeks before the onset of labour to avoid pregnancy related complications; and because the hospital does not have a maternity waiting home, they are all squeezed in the ward.

These women are accompanied with a helper to care for them.

At least the pregnant women squeeze themselves in the maternity ward, but what about the guardians?

This is where the saying ‘survival of the fittest’ takes its course as these women are left to search for a tiny space to spend their nights in the normal guardian shelters which are also overcrowded.

Sixty-one-year-old guardian Rose Banda complains: “I have been here for three weeks with my pregnant daughter, but we are living in very poor conditions, there are no toilets, bathrooms and we sleep in rooms without doors and windows; life is so hard here.”

Banda says the place is a breeding point for water and air borne diseases.

So in this case the setting does not successfully help women with high-risk pregnancies, it simply exchanges the problems they leave in their villages for new ones at the hospital.

These women and their guardians pass through this agony all in the name of safe motherhood.

Dr Alinafe Mbewe of Mzimba North talks of instances where they have lost a pregnant woman with complications due to overcrowding.

However, she says the hospital, which caters for a population of 600 000 people, cannot let women die of pregnancy related complications in their villages because of lack of bed space.

“The hospital cannot accommodate everyone because the ward is meant for inpatients, not a waiting home, but we still take them all.

The only serious problem we are facing is that it puts pressure on the medical staff as in some instances we miss out on women with complications,” Mbewe says.

She explains that because of the overload the women do not sleep on beds, but mattresses arranged in a way of creating more space; others sleep on mattresses meant for under-five children.

Under normal circumstances, maternity waiting homes are built near a facility to allow pregnant women from hard to reach areas to travel there several weeks before delivery.

These women wait at the shelter for the onset of labour to avoid pregnancy related complications when being attended to by unskilled workers such as traditional birth attendants (TBAs).

Maternity waiting homes are not a new idea. Since the early 20th century they have been there in United States and Europe in the remote rural areas where women have limited access to an obstetric facility.

On August 24 2013, former president Joyce Banda laid the foundation stone for the construction of a waiting home in Lilongwe’s Area 25 to reduce maternal mortality which is at 510 per 100 000 live births in the country.

Banda had set the goal of constructing 130 such facilities nationwide.

According to national safe motherhood coordinator Chimwemwe Chipungu, things are not all rosy in the initiative.

Chipungu says so far there are 11 operational waiting homes country wide.

“We have a shortage of waiting homes currently, we need them in all the health facilities,” he says.

As for Mzimba,Chipungu has this: “A lot has to be done for the district; I have been there twice in the month of October and it is pathetic.”

He says as big as the district is, it only has one referral hospital with scattered rural health centres.

“These health centres do not have resources, which makes pregnant women overcrowd the district hospital,” narrates Chipungu.

He explains that there is need to construct waiting homes, theatres and provide ambulances in all health centres in the district.

Executive director of Malawi Health Equity Network (Mhen) Martha Kwataine says shortage of maternity shelters in most hospitals in the country discourages pregnant women from being attended by skilled workers.

Kwataine says it is a health hazard for the women and their helpers to be accommodated in those poor conditions.

“The conditions are not good for pregnant women as they can get infections, which are not good for the babies’ as well,” Kwataine explains.

She laid the blame on politicians whom she says lack consistency when power changes hands.

“We politicise issues so much, the safe motherhood initiative was vibrant during the past regime, but currently we are hearing nothing on the initiative,” she says.

Kwataine says with the current conditions in most hospitals, pregnant women will be discouraged from waiting at the hospitals in case of high risk pregnancies.

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