Cape Town - The national Department of Health is to launch a campaign to track pregnant women, aimed at preventing maternal mortality, said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.
Speaking in Cape Town on Thursday, alongside the Inclusive Healthcare Innovation Summit, Motsoaledi said maternal mortality in South Africa was at unacceptable levels, partly because a significant number of women did not go for any prenatal check-ups. The first time they were seen medically was when they went to a health centre to give birth, which was too late to pick up any pregnancy complications.
The aim of the plan was to follow these women in their own communities instead of waiting for them to go to clinics.
The country was battling to reduce maternal and newborn mortality as part of its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals project.
Motsoaledi has previously said teen moms were a big obstacle to achieving these goals, with under-18s making up 36 percent of maternal deaths.
South Africa has committed itself to reducing maternal mortality to 38 deaths in 100 000 births. Currently the rate is 269 deaths in 100 000 births.
Experts have warned that it is impossible to get down to 38 within a single year. The country has also committed itself to reducing the deaths of under-fives from 60 deaths in 100 000 births to 20 by next year. Statistics show that about half of these children die within a week of being born, due to prematurity, infection or suffocation during birth.
Motsoaledi said: ”Just because there are hospitals and clinics doesn’t mean that every pregnant woman is going to be catered for.
“The aim is to know these women individually… has she done HIV testing and counselling? If she is HIV-positive is she taking precautions that the baby is born HIV-negative or are we just increasing the number of babies born like that? Has she gone to the hospital before 14 weeks, or is she just going to appear in hospital one day to give birth? These are practical things we want to know beforehand.”
While he wouldn’t give full details of their plans as the campaign was yet to be launched, Motsoaledi hinted that women would be registered via their cellphones. They would be able to send a call-back to a team of agents, who would assist them about access to health care. These women would also be able to register their complaints via telephone if they had had been mistreated at clinics or hospitals, and their problems would be solved in real time. - Cape Argus