About 21 pregnant women die every day in Kenya due
to complications from childbirth. That’s equivalent to two 10-seater commuter
micro minibuses, known as matatus, crashing every day with the loss of all the
passengers on board.
Pregnant women in Kenya die because they
either do not receive appropriate care during pregnancy or are unable to
deliver with the help of skilled health attendants.
The World Health Organisation recommends four
antenatal visits and skilled care during and immediately after delivery. It
also recommends emergency obstetric care in cases of complications as key to
reducing maternal and neonatal deaths. But the costs for antenatal care
and skilled delivery are simply too high for many poor women in Kenya. Based on
data collected before the maternity subsidy policy was introduced the
costs associated with a normal pregnancy and delivery was more than
20% of the country’s gross national income of USD$1,380 per capita.
The intention of the maternity fee waiver, implemented in
2013, was to remove out-of-pocket fees for skilled delivery in public health
facilities across the country. This would enable thousands of pregnant women
delivering at home to access proper services. The direct payments for normal
and c-section deliveries was replaced by a national government budgetary
allocation to reimburse health facilities for deliveries provided.
The effect of the new policy was immediate. There was a 22%
increase in skilled deliveries in facilities between 2013 and 2015.
What the policy hasn’t done is address the entrenched
inequity between rich and poor women. In fact... read more here
News credit: TheConversation
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