Johannesburg - Health worker unions have expressed shock at the country’s latest child mortality figures, which show that a baby dies on its first day of life almost every hour.
Sizwe Pamla, spokesman for the National Education Health Allied Workers Union, described the latest figures as “distressing”.
The DA said it would write to the South African Human Rights Commission asking it to investigate the deaths and make recommendations to Parliament.
The 2013 State of the World’s Mothers report, which was released by Save the Children SA last week, paints a bleak picture of child and maternal mortality in South Africa, showing that every year, 7 500 babies die within 24 hours of birth.
This translates into 21 deaths a day or one baby in almost every hour. Also, 3 000 mothers a year die of complications relating to pregnancy or childbirth.
The report, which ranked South Africa 77th out of 176 countries on the global index, attributed the mortality figures to a shortage of skilled health workers. Finland, Sweden and Norway were at the top of the list, and the Democratic Republic of Congo last.
Pamla said the lack of support systems and poor working conditions for health workers in public health care saw many nurses moonlighting or leaving the public sector.
Sibongiseni Dalihlazo, spokesman for the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), said the union noted the latest report “with sadness”.
He said the report highlighted the need for the country to improve the training of midwives.
Because of the “critical shortage” of midwives, Dalihlazo said it had become the “norm” in many hospitals to staff maternity wards with nurses who were not qualified to do the job.
“Allocating non-midwives to maternity sections in hospitals not only increases the risk of seeing more babies dying, but leads to an increase in medical cases against nurses.
“While the country is making steady progress in reducing child mortality, it needs to focus on increasing the skills pool for midwives.”
- The Star