GIVEN the alarming number of teenage pregnancies in the mining town of Linden, the Linden Hospital Complex has opened an antenatal clinic for teenage mothers since they are considered high-risk.

The clinic commenced operations last month and according to Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Farouk Riyasat of the LHC, some 40 teenage mothers are already benefiting from the clinic, which is operating at both the Mackenzie and Upper Demerara Hospitals. “The response is good, we have about 40 teenage pregnancies right now and that would be counting all the teenagers in the region,” he said.

In the hospital’s mission to continue along the path of no maternal deaths, the decision was made to have the young ‘high-risk’ mothers ranging from the ages of 13-19 to attend clinic at the hospital, so as to benefit from specialised care, rather than to attend antenatal clinic at a health centre.

According to statistics coming out of LHC, 18% of the deliveries done are on teenagers. Dr. Farouk Riyasat, who deemed the situation worrying, revealed that the statistics show that for 2016, out of the 998 live births at the hospital, 179 were delivered to teenage mothers. Therefore every month approximately 14 teenagers are delivering babies at the hospital. The statistics also show that for 2016, two of these teenagers were HIV positive.

The high teenage delivery rate creates a correlation with the hospital’s high rate of caesarean deliveries. For the year 2016, the percentage of total C-Section stands at 30. “A lot of them are really young, 15 years, 14 years, they don’t have the anatomy, the space to deliver,” Riyasat said in a previous interview. All the cases are reported to the Ministry of Social Protection and a large percentage of the girls are from the Indigenous communities on the Linden Soesdyke Highway and riverine communities in Region 10.

This was corroborated by Probation Social Services Officer, Amrel Beckles, attached to the Ministry of Social Protection’s office in Linden. She also added that a large percentage of the girls are from the mined-out communities in Region 10, such as Coomacka Mines, Nottinghamshire, Old England and Three Friends. Beckles added that the ministry is aware of the situation and does follow up on the reported cases. Once the girls willingly give a statement identifying the father and they are found, they are charged with statutory rape. The Ministry is also involved in sensitisation exercises in collaboration with non-governmental organisations across Linden. The bodies would visit schools and other institutions in an effort to bring awareness to the consequences of early involvement in sexual activity.