A Maternal Health promotion campaign dubbed, ‘Zero Tolerance for Preventable Maternal Deaths and Disabilities’ has been launched in Accra to improve access to quality care for pregnant women.
The campaign, launched by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) would seek the public’s support to remove barriers and unfair treatments that push women and girls with unintended pregnancies to dangerous paths that lead to their untimely deaths.
Director General of GHS, Doctor Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said it would create an avenue for women with unintended pregnancies to avail themselves for the best and safest techniques for terminating unwanted pregnancies.
That would in turn save their lives and ensure a timely family planning to prevent further unintended pregnancies.
“The campaign on the theme ‘Preventable Maternal Deaths and Disabilities’ simply means that no woman or girl engages in unsafe abortion due to social stigma or financial limitations,” the Director General, said.
He called on society to end all forms of stigma and unfair treatment against women and girls seeking abortion care.
They say the two major causes of pregnancy and childbirth related deaths were excessive bleeding and hypertensive diseases and that interventions focused on the causes, would significantly reduce the risk of maternal deaths.
Evidence showed in Ghana that nearly half of pregnancies were unintended and a significant proportion of women in their reproductive age with unintended pregnancies resorted to abortion. Unfortunately, abortion-related maternal deaths, though highly preventable, remained under-reported due to stigma.