Ramathuba shares health tips for pregnant women
SEKHUKHUNE – There have been reports of pregnant woman giving birth outside clinics in Limpopo.
Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has noted with concerns reports of women delivering outside healthcare facilities as a results of some clinics not operating 24hours leading to risking both the life of the mother and that of the newborn baby.
Ramathuba informed the public that not all clinics operate 24 hrs.
“The department was in the process of activating our clinics to operate 24hrs, unfortunately Covid-19 affected this project negatively leading us to regress and the main reasons for our failure to operate 24 hours include staff shortages. Clinical nurse practitioners, midwives who can function independently and many more personnel”
She said the patient especially pregnant women have responsibilities for them to avoid such incidents.
“When a woman missed her periods, she must go to the clinic and do pregnancy test. If she chooses to keep the baby she must start Antenatal clinic visits before 20 weeks and not to wait until the pregnancy is visible.
“Antenatal visits do not only focus on the health of the mother and the baby, however, during the visits Midwives usually advice on place of delivery and mode of transportation and any other logistics.”
The MEC advised, “whenever a woman start to experience labor pains, she doesn’t wait until the pains are worse while self progressing herself at home, there is no woman who will deliver outside our facilities because there is no place in our province which you need 10hrs to reach.”
The department appealed to every pregnant woman as supported by their spouses and families to comply with Antenatal visits wherein they will be told on the expected date of delivery or they must remain vigilant in that date and once labor pains starts they must not wait and progress themselves.
“ We are currently facing serious budget cuts which will continuously affect our programs on improving service delivery hence we want to work together with our communities to try to avert some of these negative incidents”, said MEC Ramathuba.
