Dr. Diana Atwine, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health, has said that neonatal mortality rates have dropped from 27 to 18 per 1,000 live births, and there has also been a drop in maternal mortality rates from 108 to 90 per 100,000 live births.
Dr. Atwine, while speaking at the ongoing 3rd National Safe Motherhood Conference on October 24, 2023, at Speke Resort Munyonyo, said that the increase is attributed to increased access to maternal health services.
“Within a period of five years, we increased Health Centres III to a total of 411 and upgraded 380 from Health Centre II and completed 31 new ones; we also managed to upgrade 10 Health Centres IVs,” Atwine revealed.
She added that 400 health centre IIIs were equipped with basic maternal and child management equipment, and the other 40 non-functional health centre IIIs were fully functional.
Dr. Atwine also noted that, with the combined effort of health workers and partners in the health sector, the service has registered success.
“We need to focus on the pending hiccups that lead to mothers and babies dying and account for those negative statistics by decisively dealing with issues like absenteeism and negligence by some of the health workers,” said Atwine.
Traditional birth attendants, teenage pregnancy alone contributes to 12% of maternal mortality, malaria, delays in accessing care, and poor emergency response, leading to cases of haemorrhage, among others.
