The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has called on families to offer care and support for women in labour as they seek timely quality health care to end the occurrence of Obstetric fistula.
It said eliminating the condition of Obstetric fistula was everyone’s responsibility, adding that as the health sector made effort to improve the quality of care, communities should support pregnant women to attend antenatal care and seek early intervention when difficulties were encountered during labour, it said.
The GHS made this known in a joint statement issued in Accra and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Ministry of Health Ghana, to commemorate the 2022 International Day to End Obstetric Fistula.
The Day is set aside by the global community to highlight the low quality of life of women and girls suffering from the condition and to garner support to address this problem.
It is on the theme, “End Fistula Now: Invest in Quality Healthcare, Empower Communities” which calls for funds to improve the quality of care and the key role of communities in addressing social, cultural, political, and economic factors that impact maternal health, sexual reproductive health and reproductive rights.
Dr Anthony Adofo Ofosu, the Deputy Director-General, Ghana Health Service, noted that an estimated 1,300 new cases were recorded annually with 1.6 to 1.8 Fistula cases occurring per 1000 births in Ghana.
It said Obstetric Fistula was one of the most serious and tragic injuries affecting an estimated two million women and girls in 55 low-income countries, which ‘results from an especially difficult childbirth without access to emergency caesarean section.”
When the anguish of leaking intensifies, it causes afflicted women to lose control of their urine, faeces, or both, and they frequently miscarry, resulting in psychological consequences, the statement said.
It stated that although there were many factors that contributed to obstetric fistula, child marriage, adolescent pregnancies, and the low status of women in society made them more vulnerable, it said.
“For a condition that is almost entirely preventable, its persistence in Ghana is a sign of the inequities of access to emergency obstetric services, and an indication of the failure to protect the sexual and reproductive health and rights of the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls,” it stated.
It said divorce, ostracism, and stigma were common outcomes of fistula.
In an era of attaining Sustainable Development Goal three by 2030, the need to eliminate obstetric fistula had become even more urgent, the statement said.
Source: Ghana News Agency