MINISTER of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, says over the last 10 years there has been a significant decline in maternal deaths and that is because of the new interventions that were put into place.
“There are a couple of reasons why a woman might die during childbirth; one would be postpartum hemorrhage, meaning bleeding after delivery and if that’s not properly managed you can have persons dying. We recognise that this is an issue and we have trained healthcare workers across the public health system to respond appropriately to this,” Minister Anthony said.
In the last three to four years Guyana has not had any case of postpartum hemorrhage. The Health Minister attributed this largely to the kinds of training that is being given to healthcare workers, thereby eliminating one of the major causes of maternal deaths. He however, said training remains continuous so as to ensure that healthcare professionals abide by all necessary protocols.
In remote and hinterland regions the Ministry of Health has implemented another initiative to help mothers deliver their babies safely.
“Another intervention we have put into place, is to create waiting homes. A waiting home is a building that is being put in the compound of a hospital and the people who live far away, they can come to the hospital, stay in the waiting home and when they go into labour, they move from the home into the delivery ward and so they can have a safe delivery,” Minister Anthony said.
This measure was taken by the Health Ministry as a means to avoid and eliminate complications as prior to the construction of the waiting homes, many mothers delivered their babies on route to the hospital which is highly unsafe.
So far six waiting homes have been constructed across the country but the Health Ministry’s aim is to establish waiting homes in every interior hospital because it will make a big difference in ensuring safe deliveries as evident in Region One, recording no maternal deaths last year.
According to Minister Anthony, in the event that death does occur, the entire chart for that patient is seized within 24 hours and handed over to the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). “We do that because we don’t want anybody to go and interfere, add anything or write anything or do anything to that chart because it is a record and we don’t want anybody to alter that record. When that file goes to the CMO, he sets up an internal team in that institution, that would review the case and then you have an external team that would also go in and do a review. If there is any negligence on anybody’s behalf, that person is taken in front of the Medical Council and the Medical Council will decide what action to take,” the Health Minister said.
He reiterated that the same rule applies to nurses in a case where death is caused by negligence of a nurse. The nurse would be taken to the nursing council and the council would decide the next course of action. In extreme instances, if the licence of that person gets pulled, then that person is prevented from practising in Guyana and this applies for both nurses and doctors.
Minister Anthony revealed that the system is being designed to ensure that there is fairness across the board. “We also have a Maternal Mortality Committee, so whenever a death occurs, this committee would also investigate the matter apart from the investigation we do internal to the ministry, at the institutional level, at the ministry level, there is an external committee and very often that committee is headed by somebody who is not from the public sector because we do not want people to feel that we are biased and we cover up things. That committee could come in with an impartial view and be able to make that assessment,” Minister Anthony said.
Apart from this committee, cases that are termed ‘Near Misses’, which means that the person didn’t die because of the actions that were taken, Minister Anthony said that these cases are reviewed and used as teaching moments for doctors and nurses so that they never be repeated.
“There is a very elaborate process that we have. We want to prevent these things from happening and that is why this is important,” the Minister noted.
