DAKAR (AlertNet) - Governments attending an African Union summit this week must consider Africa's high maternal death rates as a state of emergency and urgently commit more funds to improving healthcare for women and infants, said aid agencies.
Irungu Houghton, Oxfam's pan-Africa director, said African leaders meeting in Uganda's capital Kampala must ensure free access to maternal and infant healthcare, and respect their commitments to allocate 15 percent of their budgets to healthcare.
"There are more women dying from complications related to child birth than there are who die from other diseases and pandemics," Houghton, told AlertNet on the phone from Kampala.
The United Nations says sub-Saharan Africa is home to 47 percent of global maternal mortality and 34 of the world's 36 countries with child mortality rates above 100 per 1,000 births.
Maternal and infant healthcare is high on the agenda of the AU summit, which is also focusing on peace and security issues currently plaguing Africa.
Civil society groups meeting in Uganda ahead of the summit say public health systems in most African countries have collapsed, with dire shortages of doctors, nurses, midwives and medical supplies affecting women and children the most.
"Women do not have financial resources to pay the cost for themselves and their childrenÂ?s health needs and many are dying silently in our rural areasÂ?our presidents must act to stop these preventable deaths," said Helen Diouf, a member of the Senegal Social Forum.
Oxfam's Houghton said user fees are one reason why women and children are dying. Oxfam is urging governments to abolish them, saying countries that have introduced free maternal health care have seen a drop in maternal deaths.
Hospital officials in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown say the number of women seeking medical care has tripled since April, when the government scrapped user fees for pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under-five.
However the spike in the number of women seeking help has increased the strain on the few available doctors and inadequate health services, in a country still recovering from a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.
This problem is not just confined to Sierra Leone - it is repeated across most of sub-Saharan Africa.
"The issue of over-burden must be taken seriously but it does not invalidate the relevance of free health care. It rather sends a message to policy makers about the magnitude of the problem and the necessity for adequate financing for health services," Houghton said.
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