Dr. Elias Sory, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, on Monday, disclosed that an approximately 3,500 women die every year in Ghana of pregnancy related causes.
He mentioned Post Partum haemorrhage (severe bleeding), which accounted for 29 percent, as the leading cause of deaths (GHS Annual Report 2009).
Dr. Sory disclosed this in a speech read for him at a stakeholders meeting on the Misoprostol project in Sunyani.
The two-year pilot project, being implemented in Sene in the Brong-Ahafo region, Komenda-Edina-Eguafu-Abirem in the Central region and Birim South and Upper Manya in the Eastern region, is aimed at reducing maternal mortality, by ensuring that, all women who delivered at home have access to Misoprostol.
Misprostol is a tablet that can be administered orally or rectally and is a proven uterotonic, increasingly used for post partum haemorrhage control at the community level.
Dr. Sory said the major contributory factor to maternal mortality is the low coverage of skilled birth attendants, the ratio being one midwife to 1,510 pregnant women and one doctor to 17,733 people and also, 1,439 health facilities for 22 million Ghanaians.
He noted that due to inadequate skilled staff and other reasons, most women, especially those in the rural areas, continued to deliver with the traditional birth attendants, adding that, 15 out of every 100 pregnancies were likely to have obstetric complications (World Health Organisation report 2007).
"The high maternal mortality rate of 451 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births is unacceptable and the ratio is even higher in the rural areas, particularly in Northern Ghana", Dr. Sory added.
He said it was against this background that the government had adopted some global legislations and policies, such as the Safe Motherhood Initiative, to help bring the situation under control.
Dr. Sory appealed to the media, churches, mosques and Non-Governmental Organisations, to join the crusade on safe motherhood.
Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Deputy Director, Family Health Division of the GHS explained that, in order to increase access and availability of
misoprotol, the GHS was being supported with technical and financial assistance by Venture Strategies Innovations, a California based NGO to
undertake the project.
The project, he explained involved the distribution of the tablets at the antenatal clinics and other health centres in the implementing districts.
Mrs. Gladys Brew, programme officer at the Family Health Division took the participants through post natal care and asked pregnant women to ensure that they gave birth at health facilities to minimize maternal mortality.