The Eastern Regional Health Directorate says half of the pregnancies recorded in the region annually are unintended often leading women and girls to resort to unsafe practices to terminate the fetuses, resulting in life-long complications and deaths sometimes.
The situation has been fueling alarming maternal deaths in the region.
62 pregnant women including women with abortion complications have died in various health facilities from January to September 20, 2022.
The number could be higher as many who died in communities might have been concealed from health officials.
Addressing the media, the Eastern Regional Health Directorate, Dr. Winfred Ofosu said, a lot of measures to address these challenges have been made by launching the “Zero Tolerance for Maternal Deaths” campaign which primarily aims at reducing unintended pregnancies among women and girls through the provision of safe abortion and family planning (FP) services to reduce maternal deaths.
The campaign is further seeking support for these unfortunate people to avail themselves of the best and safest techniques for terminating unwanted pregnancies to save their lives and for timely family planning to prevent further unintended pregnancies.
Other activities carried out in addition to the campaign include the integration of Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) into Reproductive Health Services. Activities carried out to aid the integration of CAC into reproductive health services include; Engagement of RHMT to sensitize members on the integration
Mapping of existing service providers and monitoring of their activities, Training of regional resource team Training of regional data resource team, Training of Regional and district Champions on Value Clarification and attitude transformation, and Engagement of the DHMT to sensitize them on the Value Clarification and attitude transformation.
He further said Health information officers, Public Health Nurses, and service providers were trained.
Support visits to service provision sites, Distribution and orientation on CAC data collection tools, standards, and protocols, and Soft launch of zero tolerance for maternal death
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
