Tema General Hospital Maternity Ward cry for attention
Audrey Micah, Ghanadot

Accra, June 1, Ghanadot - Conditions at the Maternity Ward of the Tema General Hospital needs urgent attention to check infant and maternal mortality rate. The ward is so congested to the point that two mothers who had just  just delivered their babies had to share one bed.

A number of mothers were lying down helplessly with their just delivered babies on the floor and on benches in the poorly ventilated and congested ward. At the labour ward, women in labour were seating on chairs because there were no beds.

One of the midwives who pleaded anonymity said "the place is too small for us, it needs expansion. I delivered a baby on the floor because we don't have beds and is it not that we have not complained, we have done it several times but nothing is done".

"Now that we have free delivery the facilities we have can no longer cater for all these people, that is why all these are happening, we really have to do something about this as a nation if we really want to go higher".

When GhanaDot visited the place over the weekend, the water situation was no better thus each pregnant mother was asked to bring two sachet of "pure water" before they are delivered, if not there would be no water to wash their babies with. And those who could not go out to buy were given some at high prices by nurses who have turned themselves to business women.

Women at the labour ward were left unattended and within the 3 hours three babies had died. The death of these babies led to a lot of confrontations as families of the babies blamed the nurses and midwives on duty at the time of killing the children.

Poor environmental sanitation in the ward was embarrassing as nursing mothers fight for space with filth which have practically engulfed half of the ward and  would even get worse should it rain.

Ghana has for long not taken matters of sanitation to seriously, but disease prevention through promoting of high sanitary standards in health facilities should be given priority.

Recent maternal mortality survey conducted in Ghana suggested that maternal death was still a problem in Ghana as results showed that 450 mothers perished for every 100,000 live births against 2006 .

In Ghana there is only one nurse for every 1,500 people and one doctor per 17,700, according to the UN. In rural areas the ratio is even more stark, as 70 percent of Ghana's doctors work in Accra or Kumasi, the second-largest city.

Ghanadot