Amid poor health sector of Liberia, 11 women have reportedly died of maternal ailment in Nimba County.
The Daily Observer Newspaper quotes the Nimba County Health Team (NCHT) as reporting about 11 maternal deaths across the county, prompting concern among health practitioners and ordinary citizens in the area.
Lee Dano, Community Health Promotion Officer of the County Health Team, said the County Health Team is making efforts by tackling it with emergency, because it is a strange scenario in the history of the county’s health sector.
Dano informed Radio Nimba Morning Show, “Behavioral Change Communication” that they started recording the 11 cases of the maternal deaths from health and non-health facilities in January of this year.
Mr. Dano speaking on the topic, “Maternal and Neonatal Death,” urged the public, especially pregnant women to always visit health facilities for medical checkups, and avoid seeking traditional treatment.
He said many of the cases derived from delay on the part of the community, and families to promptly transfer victims to nearby health facilities whenever they noticed that the woman is in pain or under complicated conditions.
Mr. Dano said he regretted the situation, which he described as “unrealistic and unprecedented” for a woman to die, while giving birth in this contemporary era.
Based on the situation, he said, the County Health Team has instituted measures to prevent it from reoccurring.
Some of the measures, according to him, include the imposition of fines on non-licensed midwives or non-licensed medical person(s) that would be caught in a community administering services to pregnant women. Nurse(s) caught in similar situation would be imprisoned if found guilty of deliberate error leading to death of any pregnant woman.
Drug shortages
There are reports of a shortage of essential medical drugs across the county, where patients are now being requested to purchase doctors’ prescribed medicines on their own at any pharmacy.
According to some residents of Nimba County, the cost of medical services and drugs at the various clinics and hospitals (both public and private) is skyrocketing on a daily basis.
Maternal Mortality Rate in Liberia
According to the UNICEF , with 1,072 maternal deaths for every 100,000 births, Liberia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
The mortality rate of newborns, within the first 28 days of life, is also high—37 for every 1,000 live births.
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