Higherlife fights maternal mortality
IN complementing Government’s efforts to improve mortality rates, Higherlife Foundation has donated high tech maternal health medical equipment to Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital.
Receiving the donation recently, the hospital’s Medical Superintendent, Dr Dorcas Mutede, said the equipment will go a long way in seeing that the country meets the Sustainable and Development Goal target of reducing maternal mortality by 2030.
“According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of 2019, Zimbabwe has a maternal mortality ration of 462 deaths per 100 000 live births, and a neonatal mortality rate of 32 deaths per 1000 live births.
“While this is an improvement from the 614/100 000 live births for maternal deaths recorded in 2014, the slow rate of improvement indicated that Zimbabwe was unlikely to meet the SDG target for reducing maternal mortality. However, with this equipment here which I believe has not only been given to our hospital alone, we might meet the target,”she said.
The hospital received a cardio tochograph, multiparameter monitor, vacuum extraction kit, neonate resuscitation kit, machine, infusion pump and a CPAP syringe pump.
The foundation is donating the equipment to seven hospitals in the country, including Sally Mugabe Hospital, Mbuya Nehanda Maternity Hospital, Chitungwiza Hospital, Mpilo Hospital, United Bulawayo Hospitals, Victoria Chitepo Hospital and Gweru Provincial Hospital.
Head of Health for Higherlife Foundation, Dr Ronald Nyabereka, said while the Covid-19 pandemic has unearthed huge fractures in Zimbabwe’s health care system, it has also disrupted the provision of essential maternal and neonatal health services.
He said the gains that the country had made in improving mortality rates have been severely eroded, with the ratio remaining at 462 per 100 000 live births.
“Without intervention, more precious lives of mothers and their babies could be lost from preventable causes.
“As Higherlife Foundation, we continue to respond to the maternal health crisis in the country through implementing a maternal and neonatal health program that targets our central hospitals. Our intervention is two-fold, firstly we supply critical equipment for maternity wards to address shortages that lead to incorrect risk assessments, diagnosis and treatment.
“Secondly, we support emergency obstetrics and neonatal care. So far we have trained 3 768 healthcare workers, with two of them stationed here in Mutare. Fourteen more from this station were recently trained as we are committed to continue supporting training of more health workers,” he said.
Dr Nyabereka said the training’s main objective is to equip health care workers with the knowledge on how to improve service provision through investigation of deaths and adjustment of approaches to keep women and their babies from dying while giving birth.
Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital’s specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Mirriam Kanyenze, thanked Higherlife Foundation for the donation, stating that it will help in reducing maternal mortality and neonatal rates.
“We are a referral hospital so we get mothers who need to be monitored as they deliver and the machines will help us. Some of the machines monitor the mother while the others monitor the baby while he or she is still inside the womb and therefore reduces the risk of losing patients. This is a referral hospital and such machines are really needed,” she said.