Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Women MPs Want More Funding for Childbirth

By NELSON WESONGA & YASIIN MUGERWA

Posted  Wednesday, July 16  2014 at  01:00
PARLIAMENT. 
Two women representatives want Parliament to push the Executive to allocate more funds to obstetrics – a branch of medicine that deals with childbirth as well as midwifery.
They say the amount the government has been allocating has compromised childbirth so much so that less than 40 per cent of the health centres have piped water in the maternity wards.
“This has compromised clean and safe births, which increases the risk of infections that currently account for about 22 per cent of maternal deaths in the country,” Ms Ronah Rita Ninsiima, the Kabale District Woman Representative, said on Tuesday when reading a petition by women from Kabale.
She added that many health centres could not carry out caesarean sections and transfuse blood.
Relatedly, Ms Joy Atim Ongom, the Woman Representative of Lira District, said the government should meet “new-borns care services”.
The women leader’s pleas – during yesterday’s plenary – come just weeks before the House starts appropriating money for the different government departments, one of which is the Ministry of Health.
Ms Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of Parliament, referred the petitions to the House Committee on Health.
The committee should scrutinise the petitions, hear from stakeholders, make recommendations and report back to the House within 45 days.
However, in many cases, many a committee of Parliament do not complete the work within the 45 days.
Consequently, the people who would have rushed to Parliament for assistance assume the House has ignored their problem.
Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the Member of Parliament of Kinkiizi East, said the House should consider whether it should form a special committee to handle petitions.
The Speaker said this could be because some petitions are supposed to be dealt with by some government committees.
editorial@ug.nationmedia.com
Source: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Women-MPs-want-more-funding-for-childbirth/-/688334/2385158/-/4vslc1z/-/index.html

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