So everyday 12 women die due to childbirth related complications in Uganda. This translates to a maternal mortality ratio of 169 per 100,000 live births. And there are several reasons why these mothers are dying due to these complications. But there are three major reasons behind all those other reasons why they are dying. And we summarize them into the three delays.
Delay number one, the woman who is pregnant may get a complication like bleeding while she is pregnant and she delays to make a decision to go and seek health care. That’s delay number one. And the reason she is delaying, they are very simple, number one, because she may not have information that this bleeding while I am pregnant is dangerous, is life threatening. So, lack of what? Information.
The other reason is that she may not be economically empowered. That she has to depend on the husband who has the money, the mother-in-law, the relative, to give her permission to go to hospital. So we may need to be empowered to be able to 1make decisions early. That’s the first delay.
The second delay is the woman has made up her mind that now I have to go to hospital because I have a complication. But she delays to access the health facility because of the poor roads. They may be having potholes, many bridges have collapsed and the roads are flooding, people who stay on the islands may have no boat ambulances, so they delay to access health facilities and hence the complications are worsening during the delay.
Now, delay number three, these people finally access the health facility but they find no health workers, they find no medicines, they find no blood. So they actually delay to get the actual treatment while they are in the health facility. So we are saying journalists are very important in this. When you look at thefirst delay, they set the agenda, they can decide to inform the mothers out there, educate them, educate them about danger signs in pregnancy.
Journalists are very important. You can tell a mother on your radio program that bleeding while you’re pregnant can lead to death. Once you see this, immediately go to the health facility. Journalists can flashlights on the poor roads.
If we have potholes in our roads and they are going to lead to women delaying to access health facilities, journalists can report on this and the policy makers, the leaders will be able to bring their attention to this. But also journalists can go down in the health facilities and understand what is the staffing supposed to do in health facilities.
Do we have blood? How much blood are we supposed to have in such a health facility? What are the shortages in blood? How can we solve these shortages? And the journalists talk about this. So, journalists are very important. We are calling upon you to come and join this battle of reducing maternal mortality in Uganda.
You can only do this as a journalist if you are equipped with the safe motherhood information. And you can only do this by making sure that you study these things, for example through the masters of public health leadership. Thank you so much.