Mills' Wife Cries Over Alarming Maternal Deaths

The first Lady, Mrs. Ernestina Naadu Mills, has called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives to draw comprehensive programmes that would help reduce the maternal mortality rate in the country. According to her, the rate at which women were dying during child birth was unacceptable, and something drastic must be done to reverse the trend. The First Lady was speaking at the Volta Region launch of her campaign for accelerated reduction of maternal mortality in Africa last Friday, at Ho. It was under the theme: �Ghana Cares: No Woman should die while giving Life.� Mrs. Naadu Mills called on all to work hard to ensure zero tolerance of maternal mortality in the country. �I am in the Volta Region, and hope to enjoy all the support for the vision of sustaining the continuity of the human race in Ghana, by ensuring that every woman in giving life stays alive, as well as the baby,� she said. The wife of the President noted that the loss of a mother shatters a family and threatens the well-being of the surviving children. Naadu Mills said Ghana was part of the global community that would report on the millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, and in order to achieve the MDGs 4 and 5, there was the need for everybody to play important roles to ensure that women in labour get access to health facilities early enough to have skilled delivery. She said the launch of the programme in the region, just like other regions, was to have policy dialogue, advocacy, and community social mobilization to ensure political commitment towards the reduction in maternal mortality and increase in resources, as well as bring about societal change in supporting to reduce death during delivery. The First Lady used the opportunity to urge the private sector, civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders, to increase their efforts to mobilize resources to accelerate the reduction in maternal mortality in the country, adding that the nation would soon be called to report on all the MDGs, particularly 4 and 5, which she stressed, called for concerted efforts to reduce significantly maternal mortality.