NGOs Hailed for Boosting Maternal Child Health Services in Adjumani

ADJUMANI, UGANDA: The presence of over 70 NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations) in the Adjumani district who have responded to the refugees’ emergencies during the full-blown security emergencies in Southern Sudan between 2013 and 2014 have improved the health sector, especially in the area of maternal-child health and Nutrition.

The refugees’ program has since then shifted from emergency to development programs where Food for the hungry a United States of America-based NGO, has designed a deliberate program for building the capacities of midwives and data(records) assistants in managing maternal and child health service delivery scorecards.

Briefing journalists on the relevance of the scorecards and the supplementary work of Food for the Hungry in health service delivery in his office today, March 24, 2023, the Adjumani district secretary for health Mr Sabuni John has lauded the leadership of Food for the Hungry for the intervention observing that data is a very important tool in decision making on matters of development.

Besides maintaining accurate records Mr Sabuni has advised the midwives who were drawn from all the health facilities in the district, to always be vigilant in attending to mothers who come for labour so that maternal and perinatal deaths could be avoided since it is very painful losing a mother and a baby during birth.

He said days of rudeness and delaying mothers in labour have been overtaken by devotion to professional morals and warned of tough actions against errant midwives since the policy of the ministry of health is to audit any suspicious maternal and neonatal death with the view of prosecuting those found culpable.

The Adjumani Assistant DHO, Mr Lulu Henry said maternal and Perinatal death has significantly reduced looking at the trend of maternal deaths from financial years 2019-2020, 5 mothers died in 2020-2021, 3 maternal deaths occurred and in 2021-2022, the district lost 2 mothers.

Mr Lulu said the district health sector is working hard with support from partners to ensure that maternal and perinatal deaths are reduced to zero and appealed to all stakeholders to play their roles, he guided pregnant women not to shun antenatal services.

The Food for the Hungry Program area manager Adjumani Mr Edema Luke Wilson said the midwives and records assistants need the skills to record, track and appreciate data so that the statistics can be analyzed and avail to leaders for easy decision-making.

Mr Edema revealed that available indicates that deliveries at health facilities in Ukusijoni and Itirkwa sub-counties are still low at 58%. while the rate of teenage pregnancy is disturbing and stands at 22.9%, this information he notes has been extracted from their field reports from the months of June 2022-February 2023.

He attributed the high rate of teenage pregnancy to the Covid-19 Pandemic which kept children of school going age out of school for two years leading to several youths enrolling in anti-social behaviors as practices of forced and arranged marriages have become rampant.

Food for the Hungry also introduced the Nutri-cash project, which is cash for nutrition where about 1.300 beneficiaries were targeted, including children from the age bracket of 0-5 years, and pregnant and lactating women.

Each beneficiary receives shs48.000 monthly and part of the money is used for vegetable growing to supplement the food relief items for the refugees and the project is tagged to antenatal services.