By: Nyima Sillah
Dr Musa Marena, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, has claimed that maternal deaths is on the decline contrary to reports of high maternal deaths in the country.
Speaking to The Voice exclusively, Dr Marena, said: “compare to previous years, maternal deaths have reduce a lot, it uses to be four hundred and thirty-three 433 that has reduced now and is the same thing that the recent GDHs has shown so maternal death is reducing in our country.”
“The common age where maternal death tends to happen are usually teenagers whom we advise women not to get pregnant as teenagers and also the elderly women meaning women who are above thirty-five years and above,” he added.
According to him, in The Gambia recent data has shown that maternal death has reduce, adding “our statistic that we got last year in 2020 we got 260 per 100,000 meaning if we have 100,000 babies that are born alive, we had 260 women dying.”
“What happens in our country is that our women will get pregnant early they would get pregnant frequently they would get pregnant when they are sick, they would continue to get pregnant despite their old age this is why the common age of maternal death is 35 above and 19 below. Also, early marriage can also be part of maternal death,” he continued.
“If you look at education, Ministry of Education has a role to play, nutrition, Ministry of Agriculture has a role to play, male involvement, Ministry of Gender, Empowering Women, Ministry of Gender all have role to play. Delay in reaching hospital, Ministry of Roads (NRA), none availability of electricity, Ministry of Energy, so every Ministry and every aspect of the government has a role to play and every aspect of our society has a role to play so if we work together then we would reduce maternal death,” he explained.
