193,000 women benefit from Delta free ante-natal care

ABOUT four years after the launch of the Delta State Free Maternal Health programme by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, about 193,000 women have benefitted from the scheme.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Joseph Otumara, who disclosed this yesterday in Asaba, the state capital, said the high rate of pre-natal and maternal death, which peaked at 3,628 and 329 during the period, was still very worrisome to the government.

The maternal mortality ratio in the state, Otumara said, was presently 221/100,000 live births as against 276/100,000 in 2010 while 631,4 57 cases of routine ante-natal care; 76, 589 vaginal delivery; 9,537 caesarean section and 2,866 post-natal cases were recorded.

He said that over one billion naira was spent by the government on the treatment of people with hole in the heart, heart surgery and kidney transplant.

Citing the Hippocratic Oath, which compels medical doctors not to divulge information of their patients, the commissioner, however, refused to disclose the names and number of the beneficiaries, most of whom were treated abroad.

Otumara said that not even the Freedom of Information Act would make him divulge the secret of how the public fund was spent.

As for the free under-five healthcare, which was kick-started in May 2010, he said that 461 deaths were recorded between June 2010 and last November out of the 15,057 who were admitted, noting that 43 per cent malaria, severe anaemia, which was 14 per cent and the eight per cent figure for respiratory tract infection, were the major causes of death.