Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy said yesterday that Guyana is still on pace to reach its MDG target in maternal health, but he observed that the country suffered a major setback due to “a rough four months” this year.
Guyana has had inconsistencies with respect to its progress on maternal health and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said, pointing out that the numbers have shifted from around 45 in the early 90s to just around nine deaths in 2008.
The “rough four months” he referred to means that Guyana’s maternal death rate has changed and is now at around 12 deaths per 10,000; this is higher than it was in recent years.
Ramsammy said the maternal death tally for this year is likely to be around 20, including private sector figures. “We have returned this year to figures that are more 2002, 2003…we had reduced it to single digits in 2008 and last year,” the minister said.
Ramsammy said that in his tenure as Health Minister the sector had not faced four months “as rough as these past months were.” He said the sector has been putting a number of things in place, and is counting on closing the year without any additional deaths.
He admitted that “things somehow broke down” within the past few months, noting that the system needs improving. He said that the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) should be serviced by 120 midwives, but that there are currently 64 on staff.
Ramsammy told reporters that he approved eleven more physicians for the maternity department at GPH yesterday. He said that certain maternity departments at hospitals across the country should have a doctor on duty at all times; he cited GPH and departments at Linden, New Amsterdam and West Demerara hospitals. “Doctors are on call too often…but we are returning to what it should be,” he said, adding that the country has to work on bringing the maternal death rate to a single digit if it is to meet the MDG target by 2015.
Ramsammy, in responding to a question about making the findings of maternal death investigations public, said the public should always be appraised. However, he said that forensic reports are not meant for everyone.
According to him, Cabinet is now the authority on the reports being made public since a monthly report would go before it.
In June this year, Ramsammy told Stabroek News in an interview that a change in attitudes and the required training “will turn things around” in maternal healthcare.
He said pregnant mothers need to be monitored regularly, noting that the clinical audits are being done to fact-check what is happening in the system.
“We have rules, the health workers say they are following the rules, are they?” he asked. He said hospitals also need to test for blood sugar levels and monitor women who develop gestational diabetes very carefully because some pregnancies are considered high-risk.
He had expressed concern over the number of maternal deaths, saying that some are preventable. He pointed out that this country’s problem appears to be in the area of obstetrics, which focuses on the surgical care of women during pregnancy and childbirth and for some six weeks following delivery.
