According to statistics made available to mywordsonline.com, the upper regional health directorate states that about 220 women and 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions in developing and developed regions respectively.
Despite global efforts to decline material mortality, Ghana is still battling with access to maternal health services.
At a regional campaign lunch to fight unsafe abortion in Bolgatanga the Upper East regional director of health services, Dr Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi revealed unsafe abortion contributed significantly to maternal mortality.
He also noted that between 2019 to 2021, about 647 cases of abortion were reported to various health facilities and 25 cases of post-abortion complications in the Upper East region alone.
More than half of these abortions were incomplete abortions reported to the health facilities within the same period according to the health facilities.
Three per cent of maternal deaths in our region are directly liked to unsafe abortion while nine per cent of maternal death are due to unsafe abortion.
The report further indicated that each year between 4.7 to 13.2 per cent of maternal death can be attributed to unsafe abortion.
World Health Organisation defence unsafe abortion as ” a procedure for terminating unwanted pregnancy either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards or both” while abortion is the ” loss of pregnancy before the fetus incapable of extra-uterine life”
Extra-eternal life in Ghana is 28 weeks beyond which it is illegal to have an abortion.
Complications due to unsafe abortion include pelvic sepsis, septicaemia, haemorrhage, renal failure, uterine perforation and other genital tract injuries, and gastro-intestinal tract injuries. Where expert, an emergency treatment for these is not available, women die.
it is against this backdrop that the upper regional heath directorate launched a campaign last month dubbed, ” Zero tolerance for maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion.
The regional director of health services in his official communication at the lunch empathised with the need for an urgent and consented effort must be harnessed the end the practice of unsafe abortion.
This campaign is geared toward reducing the incidence of unsafe abortion thus ending maternal mortality which is related to unsafe abortion.