Wa, Nov. 8, GNA – The Wa Municipal Health Directorate has started classes for pregnant women and their spouses to give them more education on how to live healthy lives during pregnancy and to plan for safe deliveries.

The Directorate has also declared zero tolerance for maternal deaths in every community in the municipality and appealed to men to get actively involved in matters related to women and children.

Madam Kunfah, the Wa Municipal Health Director, said this at a Community Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) stakeholders’ forum and the launch of Safe Motherhood Week celebration in Wa as part of efforts to bring primary health care to the door steps of the people.

She said from now on, anytime a pregnant mother or a child dies in the community, stakeholders such as the chief, landlord, assembly member and health staff working in that community would be held responsible.

She appealed to urged men to accompany their wives to the clinics and the pregnancy classes and said it was unacceptable for a woman to lose her life while trying to create life.

Madam Kunfah pleaded with assembly members and chiefs to work together for the survival of mothers and children and gave the assurance that her outfit would do its best to involve all stakeholders in its programmes to ensure quality health for all especially “our women and children”.

She said her outfit was working hard to ensure that the death audit or investigations and the actions to be taken to prevent future occurrences of maternal and child deaths was jointly carried out by health actors in the communities.

She said regular training of staff in life saving skills, motivation of traditional birth attendants to bring all women in labour to health facilities and provision of telephone numbers of midwives and ambulance drivers to pregnant women were among some of the measures adopted to help improve maternal health.

Madam Kunfah said last year the Directorate declared zero tolerance for home deliveries in the municipality and it helped improved skilled deliveries from 69.9 per cent to 78.9 per cent.

She suggested that family planning should be covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme to make the services more accessible to prevent unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, saying: “Women are dying from unsafe abortions and every effort should be made to reduce this”.

The Week was on the theme: “Achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 through CHPS”.

It was attended by health workers, traditional rulers, assembly members, safe motherhood groups as well as non-governmental organisations involved in the provision of health care services.