`Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has vehemently defended health workers amidst criticisms that they have been at fault for the increase in maternity deaths last year.
Speaking in the National Assembly last week during the National Budget debate, Ramsammy said that tremendous strides have been made in the reduction of maternal deaths since 1992; and although 2010 was a setback, government would continue to minimise such occurrences.
Ramsammy said that 57 pregnant mothers died in Guyana in 1991, with a maternity mortality ratio (MMR) of about 32 per 10,000 live births; but since then, significant strides have been made to reduce the MMR, and the results to date indicate that these interventions have had a positive impact on the overall health of pregnant mothers.
The minister further stated that the MMR was reduced to less than 10 in 2008, and was maintained at a level of 8.01 for 2009.
“But 2010 represents a setback year for the health sector. The rate increased to about 15 per 10,000 live births. A few of these deaths were not related to pregnancy, but the health workers and the ministry were shocked and pained by the fact that, after years of significant improvement, 2010 was a heartrending year for us.”
The health minister further stated that, although many called for punishment of the health workers, they should be reminded that these were the same workers who helped to reduce the mortality rate from 32 to eight. Those same health workers, he said, must endure the embarrassment, the humiliation, and the pain that the 2010 reversal brought the health sector.
The minister said that events of 2010 really hurt the health sector, but the sector is looking forward to returning to the trajectory of declining rates of maternal death. “I will not avoid what has come to be a most painful story for me. None of us must pretend we feel the pain of those who have lost loved ones during child birth. Yet we all must try to understand that health workers take special pride in nurturing women through their pregnancies and in delivering babies safely. It is always a painful experience when we fail to achieve the only result that matters to us – delivering a healthy child all the time without complications.”
Meanwhile, People’s National Congress Reform member Dr George Norton, in his rebuttal, said the bottom line is that the maternal and infant mortality rates are “far too high”.
The opposition member nevertheless admitted that there has been great improvement in bringing down the maternal death rate over the years.
Norton also criticised the Maternal Morality National Committee as being ineffective, and highlighted the cases of Tricia Winth, a 35-year-old mother of three from Linden who perished with her baby inside her, and Salima Ramlall, who died at the West Demerara Regional Hospital, to illustrate how “devastating an effect the absence of an Obstetrician consultant and the lack of a functioning operating theatre could have on the mothers of this country”.
Norton noted also that there are “dedicated health workers in the system, doctors who would sleep in their cars, for there is no place for them to rest while on duty; nurses who remain at their posts and work when there is not even the basic equipment and materials to do so. When there were no thermometers for temperature taking, no BP apparatus for pressure taking, when there is a complete absence of a basic torchlight for examination of a patient. In so many countries, the actions of these workers would have been different.” The opposition member also said that he would stand by the minister of health just as he (Ramsammy) would stand by his health workers.
