By Brian Atuhura
Stakeholders in Masindi district have been urged to advocate for better maternal services with an aim of supporting mothers who seek for antenatal and maternal services have healthy children.
Addressing the District Advocacy Task-Force Team on respective maternal care, during an orientation meeting held on Thursday at the District Health Officer's resource center, Herbert Mona the Advocacy adviser from White Ribbon Alliance, disclosed the report findings from the district survey which indicated that, many mothers have faced enormous challenges while seeking for maternal services during the COVID 19 lock down. And a section of health workers couldn't attend to them as many were absent from duty with the fear of contracting Corona virus.
The report further revealed, that mothers also faced a challenge of early discharges from the maternity wards due to limited space at health facilities.
Relatedly, he said a number of young girls became pregnant during the long COVID 19 lock down which put many girls at risk of getting the pregnancies and that this impacted negatively on the health care services as most health facilities became congested due to the over whelming numbers of mothers seeking for antenatal health care services.
On his part, the Chairperson Business Community Abudallah Sserunkuma, called for more trainings especially to the fathers on issues related to antenatal care because many of them don't support their spouses whenever health experts advise them on the diet to feed the expectant mothers.