Gulu Regional Referral Hospital main gate: Photo by Proscovia Achomo
 
By Proscovia Achomo

Gulu City
 
A report released by Gulu City health department during state of Gulu city affairs for the financial year 2023/2024, indicates that there has been a decline in the number of maternal deaths in the city.

In the past fiscal year, Gulu City made improving health services in maternal and child health care priority, recording 14,513 deliveries with 13,941 live births out of which 133 were fresh still births, 201 macerated still births and the number of maternal deaths decreased significantly to 24.

This reduction brought the established maternal death down to 172 deaths per 100,000 live births, the significant improvement from 269 in financial year 2022/2023.  

The reduction has been attributed to many interventions put in place by the health officials in Gulu city which include, making sure that all pregnant mothers deliver in health facilities where there is a trained midwife unlike those days where pregnant mothers are attended to by traditional birth attendants.

Gulu city also has quite a number of ambulances which are helping a lot to make early and timely referrals especially when deliveries become difficult to be managed by Health center IIIs so that other interventions can be done.

Through sensitization, there have been increase in number of pregnant mothers attending ante-neonatal care (ANC) which makes it easy for the medics to identify what the problem could be in future during delivery.

Geoffrey Topiny, Gulu City senior health educator, said a team has been put in place, known as “maternal perinatal death surveillance and response, who are put in health centers III’s and IV and hospitals.

He continued that, once death has occurred in any facility, the facility first sits down to find out what has caused the death of the mother so that if it is lack of drugs, delayed referral or maybe the mother came late from home, they determine so that the next mother does not go through the same problem.

Doreen Luboyo Aber, the secretary health and education for Gulu city council said that during monitoring of different health facilities in Gulu city, some nurses were so rude to the expectant mothers.

She therefore asked the midwives to do more in making sure mothers deliver safely especially first-time mothers who might not know what to do and thus they would need their guidance. “I urge you to support our mothers to have safe delivery and save them from dying when they are giving birth because no mother deserves to die during this process,” Doreen reasons.

Gulu City Mayor, Alfred Okwonga advised women to attend prenatal counselling and testing before getting pregnant and during pregnancy. “During pregnancy, you should go for antennal care and also be very close to your and hospitals when you are almost coming for delivery, come early, when any signs have started so that you can be saved, both the mother and the child,” he emphasized.

Maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or heightened by the pregnancy or its management. 

According to the 2022 Uganda Demographic Health Survey, the Maternal Mortality Ratio reduced from 336 to 189 per 100,000 live births while the infant mortality went from 43 to 34 per 1,000 live births.