Four die during childbirth due to blood shortage at facility

Four women died during childbirth at the Ejisu Government Hospital, last year, due to acute shortage of blood at the facility.

Dr. Akwasi Baffour Gyimah, the Medical Superintendent, confirmed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) and said they could have been saved through prompt blood transfusion.

Unavailability of blood in health facilities across the municipality has become a major headache to the service providers and has been identified as a major factor, accounting for maternal deaths in the area.

A total of nine pregnant women lost their lives in the municipality during the period.

Dr. Gyimah said matters were not been helped by the refusal of the people - relatives of pregnant women including their husbands, to voluntarily donate blood to save their lives.

The Ejisu Government Hospital, he indicated, required between 12 and 15 units of blood every week to give to road crash victims, women in labour and treat other emergency cases.

He said he found it deeply troubling that public sensitization programmes to encourage the people to donate blood, had largely failed to achieve the intended outcome.

This, he stated, would, however, not let them to give up and that they would continue to reach out to everybody and help them to appreciate the importance of blood donation.

They were going to launch a sustained campaign – visit senior high schools, churches and voluntary organisations to get people to accept mass blood donation at regular intervals, to stock the facility’s blood bank.

Dr. Gyimah said the management of the hospital had targeted zero maternal deaths, this year, and was determined to go the extra mile to achieve the goal.

He reminded pregnant women to regularly attend antenatal clinic – to access the appropriate care they needed to be safe during and after childbirth.