Maternal deaths, infant mortality down by 50 percent

Sep 12, 2016 News

– Junior Health Minister

Neonatal and maternal deaths in Guyana have been on a steady decline.
This is according to Junior Minister of Health Dr Karen Cummings.
Dr Cummings said the Ministry of Public Health, ( MoPH) has compiled information which indicates that Maternal and Child Mortality and Morbidity have decreased by half its amount when compared to the deaths recorded in the previous year.
“If we had 100 deaths by this time last year, that figure has decreased by half,” Dr. Cummings told Kaieteur News.
The Minister said that the MoPH has been working to improve the maternal neonatal health facilities and capabilities across the country.
According to Dr Cummings, the MoPH is working to ensure that all citizens can access adequate maternal and child health services.
Last year,  Senior Public Health Minister, George Norton  had promised that the Ministry would continue with efforts to meet the millennium goal, and bring maternity mortality rates down to the lowest in the Caribbean.
“We made a commitment in our campaign trail to have maternity mortality rates reduced and we uphold that,” he said, adding that the majority of maternal death cases were pointing directly to the negligence of health care professionals.
“We have recognized that we have a real problem on our hands and we have decided to tackle it by taking a multi-sectoral approach,” he said, noting that the ministry plans to improve the physical conditions of maternity facilities, especially at the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Junior Health Minister, Dr Karen Cummings

He stated that he was not satisfied with the response of the health care practitioners, highlighting that it was brought to his attention that some doctors were more “concerned about changing over shift than tending to mothers”.
‘I want the doctors to be more involved. They are negligent and I will not hide that fact. I’m hearing talks that I’m micro-managing everything, but if that’s what it will take to stop mothers from dying and dropping the maternal mortality rate, so be it,” he added.
He said that he is aiming to have doctors in the delivery room at all times, instead of just the midwives and nurses. He noted further that he will hold every nurse or doctor accountable once they are found being slack.
As of December 30 2015, Guyana had recorded 17 maternal deaths.
In 2000, a total of 189 world leaders met at the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit and accepted the Millennium Declaration. It was there they agreed to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are intended to overcome poverty and other related targets. One of those goals was to improve maternal health and reduce it by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015.
So far, the maternal mortality ratio has decreased from 270 per cent in 1990 to 86 per cent in 2012. Therefore, in order to achieve its target, Guyana would have had to reduce its maternal mortality rate to 67.5 percent by the end of 2016.