Maternal mortality moves from 776 cases in 2020 to 875 cases in 2021

The Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has revealed that eight hundred and seventy-five maternal deaths were recorded in the country last year.

Speaking at the opening of the 2022 National Health Sector Annual Summit, Mr. Agyeman-Manu opined that the situation was not the best.

The number, he stated, represents an increase of 12.3 per cent over the 776 recorded in 2020.

The Minister lamented that the health sector recorded a mixed state of performance last year as far as its service indicators were concerned.

“Our institutional maternal mortality ratio has increased from 109.2 per 100,000 live births to 119.5 per 100,000 live births in 2021, representing 9.4 per cent.

Institutional neonatal mortality per 1000 live births also increased from 7.4 in 2020 to 7.6 in 2021,” he noted.

He said the institutional under-five mortality rate increased from 9.8 live births in 2020 to 10.7 live births in 2021.

Aside from the rise in maternal mortality, there were increases in outpatient cases of diabetes, hypertension, and sickle cell; the family planning acceptor rate increased from 29.6 per cent to 33.8 per cent in 2021, and total deliveries recorded in 2021 was 782,958, an increase of 7.7 per cent over that of 2020.

Meanwhile, the Minister has announced that the country witnessed a decline in inpatient malaria deaths from 599 recorded in 2017 to 275 in 2021.

On the issue of immunisation, the Minister said the country’s immunisation programme, known as the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, recorded close to 100 per cent coverage of all the immunisation schedules undertaken.

The National Health Sector Summit, which is held by the Ministry of Health annually for all its agencies, is aimed at helping them review the performance of the health sector in the implementation of its Programme of Work.

The 2022 edition is under the theme: Strengthening Ghana’s Health Information system for tracking Universal Health Coverage (UHC).