Many countries across the world including Ghana have done extremely well in

terms of attaining some of the MDGs. Ghana, for instance, attained MDG 1, i.e
cutting extreme poverty and hunger by half long before the target date of 2015.
Significant progress has been made in the area of primary education and
fundamental rights for both men and women are guaranteed and safeguarded in
this country.
The picture however looks disturbingly grim when one looks at the rate of
success in achieving MDGs 4 and 5 which deal with child and maternal mortality
respectively. Undoubtedly, noticeable progress has been made in the area of
child mortality and maternal mortality since the 1990s. This progress has not
come about accidentally; it has been on account of policies implemented by
various governments.
They include but not limited to:

Maternal deaths notification

Midwives authorized to provide all seven life-saving tasks

Home visits within the first week of giving birth

These policies have enhanced access to healthcare by pregnant women and a

number of life-saving steps. For instance, now nearly 90 per cent of pregnant
women attend antenatal care at four or more times while about 70 percent of
births are attended to by skilled birth attendants. Also, close to 90 percent of
newborns are immunised against measles.
These policy measures and their resultant increase in access to care, has clearly
reduced the number of children and mothers who died in childbirth. For example,
Ghana's Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has declined by 49 percent between
1990 and 2013 (from 760/100,000 live births in 1990 to 380/100,000 live births
in 2013).
About 63.1 percent of deliveries were attended to by Skilled Birth Attendants in
2013 compared to 60.3 percent in 2010. This shows continuous progress.
The global picture also looks encouraging as latest figures released by the
Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group, which comprises of the World
Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), the
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Population Division
(UNPD) and The World Bank, together with a team at the National University of
Singapore and University of California at Berkeley, indicate that global maternal
mortality has reduced by 45% between 1990 and 2013.According to the report,
in 2013 an estimated 289 000 women died due to complications in pregnancy
and childbirth, down from 523 000 in 1990.
Despite these encouraging figures, buried in them is the rather grim reality that
many countries across the world in general and Ghana in particular may not
achieve the target of significantly reducing child mortality and maternal mortality
by next year. Available figures speak eloquently to this fact. The targets as they
pertain to Ghana are that Ghana should, by the year 2015, record 40 or fewer
deaths per 1000 live births, i.e. the number of children who die before their fifth
birthday should not exceed 40 in every one thousand live births.

However, according to Child Mortality Estimates, the U-5 Mortality rate in Ghana
stood at 82 per 1000 live births in 2011and an estimated 63 newborns (babies
who die before their 28thday) die every day; more than twice the figure the
country is expected to attain by next year.
Ghanas MDG target for maternal mortality is 145 per 100,000 and according to
the MMEIG, this currently stands at 380 per 100,000 live births. Meaning, a
woman in Ghana has 1 in 68 lifetime risks of dying from a maternal cause.
These figures in fact are not surprising because despite the existence of a
national plan for MNCH and the availability of all recommended life-saving
commodities for reproductive health, critical information on the use of these lifesaving commodities for maternal and newborn health does not exist and only
37% of the recommended minimum of Emergency Obstetric Care services was
available in 2011.
Even worse, only 10 percent of total government expenditure was spent on
health in 2012. This is below the Abuja target of at least 15 percent. It gets even
more disturbing when one considers the fact that large chunks of this
expenditure are not investments but simply recurrent expenditures.
The situation is compounded by challenges in accessibility to healthcare. The
State of the Worlds Midwifery report released in 2014 shows that the number of
available health workers can only meet a third of the populations need for
reproductive, maternal and newborn health services. Furthermore, access to
skilled birth attendance is very unequal; while 59% of pregnancies take place in
rural areas, births are much less likely to benefit from skilled birth attendance.
This is precisely the reason why the figures on maternal and child mortality look
ugly in some respects and the prospects of attaining MDGs 4 and 5 bleak.
Due partly to the challenges stated in the preceding paragraphs, 3,100 women
died from pregnancy-related complications in 2013 alone in Ghana. Maternal and
newborn mortality campaigners, MamaYe, quote the World Health Organisation
as saying MMR in 2013 was 380 deaths per 100 000 live births, a far cry from the
target of 145 per 100,000 live births.
The situation in Ghana is a reflection of the general situation in Sub-Saharan
Africa which has been identified as the region with the highest MMR (510),
accounting for 62% (179 000) of global maternal deaths.The MMR in developing
regions (230) is 14 times higher than in developed regions (16).
Some African countries are however on track to meet MDG5. They are:
Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, Eritrea and Rwanda. Ghana obviously is not one
of them.
- See more at: http://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/2014/September-3rd/as2015-approaches-is-ghana-going-to-be-caught-flatfooted-with-mdgs-4-and5.php#sthash.upHqNYYI.dpu