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Thobekile Khumalo, Sunday News Reporter
THE Maternity Mortality Ratio (MMR) for Zimbabwe has declined by almost 30 percent as the country makes great strides towards achieving less than 100 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births by 2030, an official has said.
The country recorded a 462 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births compared to the 651 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2014. The figures are contained in the Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey of 2019.
MMR is the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100 000 live births during the same time period.
In an interview, Family Health Director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Bernard Madzima said they were excited that they were moving towards achieving the national target of 100 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births by 2030.
“We are pretty thrilled that now we are moving towards our target of achieving less than 100 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births by 2030 and also within the reach of 2020 targets of getting less than 300 maternal deaths. According to the figures the MMR has dropped by 29,57 percent,” he said.
Dr Madzima said the ministry had taken a number of initiatives in trying to reduce the MMR such as giving free blood to pregnant women who require it.
“We have implemented a number of things which are the life saving interventions, low cost high impact which is ensuring that all district hospitals are offering Caesarean sections, pregnant women are given blood and that blood is free. We are also ensuring that the health workers are trained,” said Dr Madzima.
He said they were also working hard in providing necessary needs in order for hospitals to offer quality services for pregnant women.
“We also have managed to procure equipment, drugs like oxytocin, magnesium sulphate and commodities for the hospitals. Already our institutional delivery rate is high, so what we have made sure is that when women come to the health institutions, they get the expert service which they deserve,” said Dr Madzima.
He added that in order to strengthen what they were doing they carry out mentorship programmes as a ministry.
“To strengthen that, we have various programmes in the ministry that we do that include the mentorship programme whereby specialists go to the district, central and provincial hospitals to train workers,” he said.
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