The new report from the Ministry of Health has revealed that the number of pregnant women dying every day since the country was attacked by Covid-19 has doubled to 32 due to limited access to hospital services.
Before Covid-19, 16 pregnant women were dying every day due to different complications some of which are unavoidable, however, currently, women die while at home or on their way to the hospital due to poor transport means and lack of medical attention.
According to the head of Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital, Dr Evelyn Christine Nabunya, the lockdown and quarantine have caused tremendous reductions in the number of pregnant women who are supposed to go for antenatal checkups by about 60 per cent which could also be one of the causes for the increase in number death.
Dr Nabunya said that due to lockdown, the number of mothers dying every day at home and on their way is increasing. She added that they die normally due to a lack of people with skills to attend to them while at their homes.
Due to shut down also hospitals have limited midwives who attend to the flopping number of pregnant women. For example, the Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital is supposed to be with over 400 medical officers however they are 256 only, yet they also don’t work at once due to orders of social distance.
“Since Covid-19 is an infectious disease, we can’t let the entire hospital to work because if anything happens it will undergo a mandatory quarantine. So to prevent that some spend three days on duty especially nurses, and they leave then others report in. On the case of the number of patients flowing in, since March it had reduced suddenly, it’s just starting to increase recently,” said Dr Nabunya.
Nabunya appealed to the authorities responsible for allowing peoples’ movements during this time to help pregnant mothers because delivering is also regarded as an emergency. “One can not postpone giving birth if it’s time. This is also taken as an emergency so people should help such women especially those who normally hinder them from moving,” she said.
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