By Mohamed T Massaquoi
Faced with a high rate of maternal deaths, the District Health Management Team (DHMT) in the southern Sierra Leone district of Pujehun has called for police intervention to curb a rising rate of home deliveries.
The district health authorities say home delivery is fuelling the rate of maternal mortality for which Sierra Leone is already ranked among the worst in the world. World Bank figures show that the country has 1,360 deaths per every 100, 000 live births.
Dr David Bome, District Medical Officer (DMO) for Pujehun, has asked the police to mount community surveillance and help bring perpetrators to book. Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting involving the police, media and civil society, he said home delivery without medical attention led to some serious health complications and sometimes loss of life. He lamented that even though Pujehun had the required medical facility needed to deal with pregnancy, people tended to prefer to deliver at home.
Dr Bome cited recent examples of two incidents, less than three days apart, involving two pregnant women who were admitted at the maternity hospital with serious bleeding after undergoing a home delivery.
Figures provided by the DHMT show that between January and November this year, 25 maternal deaths had been recorded.
Dr Bome said a striking reality about the situation in Pujehun was that the majority of the reported home delivery cases happened in the district headquarter town, which is home to the impressive maternal health complex run by the Italian NGO, CUAMM.
The hospital provides incentive to boost hospital delivery. For instance, pregnant women are provided free transport to and from the maternity hospital.
"We have one of the best maternity hospitals in the country and our people are not ready to make use of the facilities which is frustrating," Bome lamented. He told the police leadership that they owed it to the government to ensure an end to home delivery as it fell within their mandate of saving life and property.
"The basis on which the Sierra Leone police are to intervene is not on standard law but on grounds of community partnership as was exhibited in the case of the Ebola fight," Dr Bome told Politico when asked on which legal basis the police could intervene.
Paul Bannister, Assistant Superintendent at the Pujehun Police Division, while assuring the District Health Management Team of the police’s fullest support to the government’s development agenda, called for the development of bye laws to give them the mandate to get more involved in the crackdown on home delivery.
Ibrahim Swaray, Chairman of the civil society coalition in Pujehun, supported the call for greater surveillance and promised the police with information-sharing to enhance their operation.
Copyright (c) Politico 2016
