Transport Problems Contributing to High Maternal Mortality Rate

At only 13, Zione (not real name) has a very daunting and demanding responsibility. She looks after her two younger sisters. She bathes them, prepare them food and does all the household chores in the home to make their lives bearable.

Little Zione's 'workload' and responsibilities are large when equated with her tender age. The role she has in her home would have been her mother's role if only she were alive.

If only her mother was alive, Zione herself could have been taken care of together with her sisters. Zione would have been in school. The mother would have been there for her children all the time. She would have tried her best to give the children their basic and essential needs.

Unfortunately for Zione and many other children in the country, her mother died when she was very young. She died soon after giving birth to her third child, Zione's sister who is now a year old. The hospital personnel attributed her death to her late arrival at the hospital.

The hospital was 'sure' that the mother would have survived had she arrived there earlier.

"Life has not been the same since my mother's death. My father left soon after her death and married another woman from a nieghbouring village. We had no option but stay with my grandmother who is very old," laments Zione who had to drop out of school to look after her sisters.

To make matters worse, her father has not been providing any financial or material assistance to the children despite him having a job as a security guard at a nearby school.

The death of Zione's mother is but one of the many pregnancy related deaths the country continues to experience. Malawi is said to have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the continent.

As Minister of Health, Marjorie Ngaunje puts it; Malawi's staggering maternal mortality ratio of 984/100,000 live births is still unacceptably too high."

In simple terms, out of every 100,000 mothers who give birth, 984 of them die to pregnancy related complications. These deaths result into a lot of problems in the homes considering the great role that mothers play in their homes and in society as a whole.

"Death of a pregnant woman or mother in any family is a catastrophe. I am saying this because such a death, deprives the household of vital income as well as love and affection," says Ngaunje.

She says loss of women's lives has a direct effect on family structure and it also affects society as a whole since it has to cope with orphaned children who are left behind.

The Minister says it is sad to note that one of the reasons why the country still has a high maternal mortality ratio is failure to bring patients to the appropriate health facilities in time.

She explains that this normally happens due to transport problems to ferry the patient to the health facilities.

Ngaunje says it is the wish of government through her Ministry to ensure that measures are put in place to save the situation.

"It is therefore important that everything possible should be done to save the lives of our beloved mothers who are key to new generations in our society," says the minister.

She says that her ministry's goal is to ensure that maternity cases should be referred from Health Centres to District Hospitals or from District Hospitals to Central Hospitals in time before complications arise.

Ngaunje adds that government and its development partners are sparing no effort to bring in interventions aimed at ensuring a transport system that will move referral patients from one facility level to another.

Speedy handling of clients through the provision of transport in good time is one of the strategies in the road map that has been recently launched by the ministry.

The road map is yet another move by my ministry towards reducing the high maternal mortality ratio. The road map stipulates several strategies which will guide policy makers, programme managers, development partners, the civil society and other stakeholders in their support to government's efforts towards accelerated attainment of the millennium development goals related to maternal and new born health," says Ngaunje.

The ministry has of late encouraged the use of motor cycle ambulances as an intervention in the ambulatory services.

The motor cycle ambulances are indeed proving to be effective to the communities especially those in the rural areas where most of the roads are really in bad shape.