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| Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, UNFPA Executive Director |
Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has said that it is no longer acceptable for a woman to die during childbirth.
Osotimehin told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of an award dinner organized by the Nigeria Health Foundation in Newark, U.S.
The UNFPA chief said people should insist that both local and state governments must deliver healthcare to them.
According to him, if people fail to hold government accountable as far as healthcare is concerned the nationโs health problems will continue to persist.
โIn the present job I have, it is very painful for me that I would hear and I would see women die during childbirth, as minister and as a doctor.
โI have seen women die needlessly because they donโt have care and because they donโt get care.
โSo a woman who is in labour goes into a care centre and she bleeds to death. This is totally unacceptable.
โThose are things that in present day world must not occur at all. These are not things we cannot prevent.
โWe cannot and should not ever leave everything to the hands of the government,โ he said.
Osotimehin, who was a one-time Nigeriaโs Minister of Health, regretted that government had become disconnected from the people and urged well-meaning individuals and organizations to come to governmentsโ aid.
โWe must take charge of our lives and of our people and I want us to all go back to our communities; make sure that we connect with our people.
โWe must make sure we hold our state and local government accountable to deliver care to our people so that at the end of the day, each one of them will have what they deserve in terms of healthcare.โ
He pointed out that in Rwanda, the rate of maternal mortality had been drastically reduced, urging other African countries to learn from the countryโs healthcare system.
โRwanda is one country that met most of the Millennium Development Goals. You know why? Because of accountability.
โIf a woman dies in labour in Rwanda, the doctor who is attending to that woman is obliged to send a text to the Minister of Health the moment she dies.
โAnd you must send the text and tell the minister why the woman dies. Thatโs not all, they would investigate it.
โIf they find that you were negligent, then they must punish you because life is not something we play with; life is what we all doctors are trained to preserve and to save.
โWe lose patients not because we want to lose them but if you lose a patient because you are careless, then you must be punished,โ he said.
According to him, people must be accountable in whatever they do, whether in the health or any other profession.
Accountability, he said, should be the watchword in health.
โThereโs no reason why a nurse should not be at work. Thereโs no reason why a doctor should not be at work.Thereโs no reason why a pharmacist should not be there. Thereโs no reason why drugs should not be available.
โThereโs no reason why a child should die of malaria or a woman should die giving birth.Those are things that in todayโs world and in todayโs Nigeria, we can look at them and be sure that we accomplish.
โAnd to say we must go beyond that; we must also make each one of us accountable for what we do in practice, in medicine and in every sphere of our lives,โ Osotimehin said. (NAN)
