Source: Tanzania Daily News
MATERNAL mortality in the country remains a threat with majority of women dying of haemorrhage after failing to access blood which is being sold contrary to policy that requires it to be offered for free.
The trend has forced safe motherhood activists to urge the government to act in putting an end to blood business to save lives.
This was said during the launch of White Ribbon Week which is due to climax on Saturday and expected to be graced by Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda in Sumbawanga.
"Selling safe blood in hospitals and health centres to pregnant women with maternal complications is illegal," said the Evidence for Action (E4A) Country Director, Craig Ferla.
He added, "There has been a bad tendency by some unfaithful health workers who use the patients' ignorance as an opportunity to sell blood especially to pregnant women." The event which took part in Nkasi District saw 94 blood bottles being collected.
"When we were speaking with people here before the voluntary blood donation drive, they expressed their concerns that they are being sold blood when they are in need of blood transfusion," said Ferla.
He noted that blood donation was essential, adding that the tendency of selling blood would demoralize blood donors who are not paid.
"People complain that they will not donate blood because even if they donate, it will benefit those with financial muscles but the majority will continue dying, this is not acceptable, we should know that blood transfusion is free in all hospitals," he said.
The White Ribbon Alliance National Coordinator, Rose Mlay, called upon the government to set a special ring fenced budget to ensure health centres in Tanzania offer caesarean section and safe blood to save women.
"If the baby is not properly directed during childbirth, there is no way a woman can deliver normally even if she is beaten, only through operation and an urgent operation, that is where safe blood becomes crucial," said Rose.
The Nkasi District Commissioner, Idd Kimanta, urged people to generate a habit of donating blood to save lives of mothers and children.
"Eighty per cent of blood donated is used for maternal and paediatric patients. Postpartum haemorrhage (bleeding) is acknowledged as the leading cause of maternal mortality accounting for between one in three to one in five of all maternal deaths in Tanzania," said Kimanta.
Everyday in Tanzania, 24 women die due to complications in pregnancy, childbirth and post-delivery, 144 newborn babies make it 168 lives lost every day. Severe bleeding during pregnancy, delivery or after childbirth is the most common cause of maternal mortality.
It contributes to around 34 per cent of maternal deaths and near misses in Africa. But, many pregnant women and new-born babies with fatal complications could be saved only if they had access to Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and New-born Care (CEmONC).
The only way to avoid these unnecessary deaths is for pregnant women to have access to CEmONC in a facility near their home at health centres where, among other things, caesarean sections and safe blood transfusions can be performed.
There is a critical shortage of blood supplies in our hospitals - with an estimated one third of the required 450,000 blood units collected in Tanzania every year. However, Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest quantity of blood donated for transfusion per person in the world.