The Wa Municipal director of the Ghana Health Services, Mrs. Beatrice Kunfah has blamed the increasing number of maternal deaths in the municipality on inadequate facilities for skilled delivery services.

The municipality recorded eight maternal deaths for the year under review.

Stillbirths have not seen much improvement as the rate reduced by 1% from 37/1000 LiveBirths to 36/1000 LiveBirths in 2014.

Speaking at the annual performance review of the municipal health directorate, Mrs. Kunfah revealed the municipality has only five facilities, including the regional hospital, for skilled delivery services.

For that reason, pregnant women have to travel long distances to access antenatal services.

Other challenges mentioned by the Wa municipal health director were delayed reimbursement of NHIS claims, inadequate physicians, medical assistants, and other critical staff and poor documentation at all the levels of service delivery.

In a quest to improve the quality of maternal and neonatal health, reduce the congestion in the maternity unit of the regional hospital and take care of pregnant women in the northern part of the municipality, Mrs. Kunfah said 20 newly qualified midwives have already been posted to some Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) zones including the Islamic hospital, one of the biggest private health facilities in the municipality.

She announced that the government in collaboration with the people of Japan (JICA) will this year construct 6 CHPS compounds in the municipality.

One of the projects awarded to a contractor at Dokpong is at an advanced stage of completion.