South Africa Struggles to Curb Maternal Mortality [Part 4 of 5] | Voice of America - English
Health experts list South Africa as one of the African countries performing poorly in efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality. The findings were reported in a survey issued by Countdown to 2015, an initiative of the UN, governments and NGOs.
Many experts blamed apartheid for a fragmented health caresystem that favored middle and upper class whites. A report by South Africa'sMedical Research Council shows that only seven percent of the country's doctorsserve in public health systems available to the poor. About 75,000 children under five die each year ? 30% of themnewborn babies. Many are born with HIV-AIDS. Dr. Mickey Chopra is an official of the Medical ResearchCouncil. He says, "Ninety-five percent of women come for antenatalcare in our country ? more than 85% of women are delivered by a skilledattendant in a facility in South Africa. And yet we still have increasingmaternal mortality and increasing child mortality. What it says is that we havethis gap: people are coming to ourservices, but they're not getting the improvements they should be getting." Most affected are remote areas and poor rural villages ?where there are not enough health facilities. Chopra notes that South Africa'sdemocratically elected government has had 15 years to integrate the fragmentedhealth care systems it inherited "We really have no excuse in South Africa. We have thefinancial resources; we have the commitment of government in primary healthcare and into the right policies. We just have to start to make things happen:re-affirm our commitment to mothers and children. Also, [we should strengthenour] priorities and facilitate some of the things I've mentioned in terms oftraining, facilitating services as well as [bringing] in new cadres ofcommunity workers and be creative in redressing our human resources shortages ?but really put the pride back in health care in this country and show that wecan make a difference." There have been success stories, including the low-costkangaroo mother care system. With this method, the baby is carried in a poucharound the mother's neck, much like a kangaroo carries its baby. The method iseffective in keeping the infant warm, preventing infections and facilitatingbreast-feeding. South Africa has also improved data collection on maternaland infant deaths, which enable health practitioners to refine their strategiesfor treating the problem. Dr. Monir Islam is the director of the Department in MakingPregnancy Safer at the World Health Organization: "What we are doing in South Africa is to look at how we canimprove the quality of care of existing facilities. We're also looking at SouthAfrica for South-to-South collaborations. Can some of the expertise we have inSouth Africa ? can't that be used for Swaziland or Lesotho or Botswana orKenya? So we're looking at both ways. One is to improve the quality of care, atthe same time we're looking at South Africa - how we can tap into the resourcesyou have, technical resources for South-to-South collaborations, particularlyin SADC or neighboring countries." Despite its poor ranking among the 68 countrieswith high child and maternal mortality, health officials say things areimproving in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, access to medicalservices has increased. And South Africa's Minister of Health Manto TshabalalaMsimang has sworn the government's commitment to improving the survival of thecountries pregnant mothers and newborns.