JOURNALIST’S DEATH AFTER CHILDBIRTH LEADS TO PUBLIC OUTCRY
By ANNIE ZULU
THE death of 29-year -old multi-award winning journalist Sithembile Siwawa Zulu, after childbirth has thrown the media fraternity in Zambia into a campaign against maternal deaths.
Ms Zulu, died on Sunday morning September 10, 2017 at the Levy Mwanawasa Hospital in Lusaka where she had been recuperating after giving birth.
Until her death, she was a SubEditor at the Zambia Daily Mail newspaper.
According to Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr Maximilian Bweupe, Ms Zulu underwent a caesarean section due to foetal distress, a condition where the foetus does not receive sufficient oxygen during pregnancy or labour.
Dr Bweupu explained in a statement that Ms Zulu became breathless after taking a bath and her condition rapidly deteriorated. “The deceased became breathless after taking a bath on Sunday in the morning after which the condition deteriorated before she passed on despite efforts to resuscitate her,” Dr Bweupe said.
According to UNICEF, in Zambia, 591 maternal deaths occur per 100,000 live births while the infant, neonatal and under-five mortality rates are at 70, 34, and 119 per 1,000 live births, respectively.
Zambian journalists took to social media to mourn Ms Zulu and launched a campaign highlighting the issue of maternal deaths with a hashtag #NoWomanShouldDieWhileGivingLife #RIPSithembile Zulu.
Brenda Nglazi Zulu “In a space of two weeks, I have heard of two deaths associated with maternal deaths. Mortality rates are unacceptably high. There is need for continued advocacy reporting on Reproductive Health issues in Zambia. What are the causes of the high #MaternalDeaths in Zambia? #RIPSithembile Zulu
Doreen Chilumbu Nawa “No woman should die while giving a life. How is it that Zambia, Africa can lose mothers, daughters, sisters, and citizens in this way? I can’t imagine Sithembile Zulu is no more.” #OurPublicHospitalsAreASeriousDeathTrap. I can’t hold it. #AYoungSisterFromAnotherMother.
Chusa Sichone “Having lost a sister almost in a similar manner 10 years ago, I join others in the #NoWomanShouldDieWhileGivingLife campaign. #RIP Sithembile Zulu.”
Henry Kabwe “A friend and equally passionate journalist has been plucked away from us. Dedicated to duty during our media bus campaigns on early childhood care, development and education around the country, you had no time to relax. Yours was work - sending stories to base. When an opportunity for becoming sub editor emerged, I was given the privilege to confirm your capacity and you never disappointed. Oh death, such a young soul.”
Edem K G Djokotoe “I didn’t know Sithembile Zulu, the young Daily Mail staffer who died, I gather from the posts I have seen on FaceBook, after birth. I have seen the outpouring of grief and emotion from many media professionals, some of whom I know well. I have even seen an online hashtag campaign which reads: #NoWomanShouldDieWhileGivingLife being driven by journalists who knew her personally and will undoubtedly be broken by her death. I imagine that because she was “one of us”, her death will get some media attention.
But I want every Zambian journalist reading this to pause for a minute and reflect on how it came to pass that we failed Sithembile and thousands of women like her by not making health a story worth telling, even though health is a matter of life and death for 14 million people who live in this country. And she passed on in a big city, the capital where there is even some modicum of care and infrastructure. Think about women tucked in the nooks and crannies of Zambia who risk death every time they have to give life to a child.
I am angry at all of us because we have chosen to subvert the values of news which form the bedrock of our professional and throw Public Interest out of the window. We have gone to bed with politicians and made them the only story in town. And for what? For the promise of a cushy diplomatic appointment or a seat on the government gravy train.
We should not pretend that we are not to blame for deliberately overlooking the news we should be covering and instead hiding behind the pale-faced excuse that because there is no Access to Information legislation in place, we are not able to report what we should.
We don’t cover health unless the Health Minister is making a speech about health. We don’t cover education unless the Education Minister is cutting a ribbon to officially launch a new school. We don’t cover agriculture even though we eat every day unless the Agriculture Minister decides to talk about maize floor prices. Come to think of it, we do not even cover mining, which gives the government over 70 per cent of its revenue and has been the mainstay of the national economy since the dawn of Time. We cover games not the broad expansive landscape of sport, so we are stumped where the soccer season closes and there are no games to watch!
When we scan news content in the public and private media, what do we see? Can we honestly claim that what is on offer gives people a real sense of what is going on in every sphere of concern under the administrative jurisdiction of a government ministry? In short, we cannot afford to be in denial about what is really wrong. I know there are real tears being shed for Sithembile Zulu, but I also know that there are many others riding on the crest of the moment to be seen to sympathise and shed hippo tears.
All said, the moral outrage that led to the hashtag campaign and to the effusiveness of the public show of grief should inspire us to do what we became journalists to do in the first place—and that is, to report news of significance and interest to our largest constituency: the public.
And the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC) said it was unacceptable that women in Zambia have continued to lose their lives while giving birth.
NGOCC executive director Engwase Mwale said the continued cases of maternal mortality rate are an indictment on the county’s health delivery system.
Ms Mwale has since urged Government through the Ministry of Health to put in place measures to stop the deaths that she said were without doubt caused by some level of negligence.
She added that the death of Ms Zulu had exposed the challenges that women endure in giving lives. “We are deeply saddened by the untimely death of Zulu who died in the process of giving life at the Levy Mwanawasa Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. As an organisation, we find it totally unacceptable that women will continue to lose their lives while giving birth.
“If a woman can lose life at a hi-tech University Teaching Hospital, what about those poor women who only have access to health centres in rural areas? Government should invest more resources in the health sector to curb maternal deaths.
“We demand that the Government immediately put in place measures to end avoidable maternal mortality that is robbing the country of productive lives. Never should the country be allowed to lose lives in such a manner,” Ms Mwale said. Ms Zulu was put to rest yesterday at Lusaka’s Memorial Park, she is survived by her husband and a daughter.