1. Posted on Wednesday 5 October 2011 - 11:52

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   FRAZER POTANI

   

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   Health Feature
   
   By Frazer Potani, Lilongwe, Malawi
   
   Just have a picture that a woman has just given birth to a baby in hospital and the new soul desperately needs electricity to survive before being discharged to be taken home to bring joy to parents , friends and relatives only the newborn to die some hours later after the sole state controlled electricity supplier switches off power supply to the hospital!
   
   This actually happened on the afternoon of Monday September 12 this year at St. John’s Hospital in Mzuzu, northern Malawi following a routine power interruption by the country’s state controlled but tax payers financed power supplier, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) that had hit the northern city until Tuesday September 13.
   
   “The new baby died due to power outage and lack of fuel in our hospital’s generator tank causing loss of power in the operating theatre,” said Acting Hospital Administrator Charity Chinkono.
   
   The St. John’s Hospital new baby death due to power outage vindicates Africanews.com’s tip to Malawian authorities for the need to boost electricity generation after exposing that power cuts were putting poor patients’ lives in danger especially those from rural areas in Malawi.
   
   Africanews.com highlighted the matter through a nerve shaking story on March 2, 2011 of five-year-old Rosetta from Nathenje in Lilongwe rural who escaped from danger by a mere whisker.
   
   How? Doctors recommended that she undergo surgical operation after a diagnosis revealed that the little girl had a tumour in her large intestine.
   
   But on the day of her operation just after surgeons had placed her on a theatre table at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) ready to be operated on and the doctors were preparing to put on their green surgical kits including strap masks round their mouths and put sterilized instruments to operate on Rosetta an electricity black-out occurred forcing the operation postponed!
   
   As this feature appears on Africanews.com operations at KCH are crippled because 16 of the 20 vehicles at this Malawi’s major referral hospital in Lilongwe and central Malawi are grounded due to diesel shortage in the country.
   
   The failure by the vehicle fleet to operate at KCH due to diesel shortage has even forced the hospital fail to send a vehicle about 48 hours ago to collect a doctor who was supposed to conduct a delicate emergency operation on a pregnant woman at Ethel Mutharika Maternity within the hospital’s campus!
   
   In Nsanje, southern Malawi, due to shortage of essential drugs including Anti-Rabies-Vaccines (ARVs) due to forex scarcity for purchasing drugs in the country some weeks ago saw people from all walks of life stopping whatever they were doing to burry a boy who died few days later after being bitten by a rabid dog.
   
   The number of victims whose health has been compromised in one way or the other due to fuel, forex and power failure in Malawi is yet to be known.
   
   But the above incidents prove that power, fuel and forex availability is vital in the lives of poor mothers and babies (child and maternal health) including general health delivery service.
   
   Power supply helps hospital equipment for treating patients to function, fuel enables ambulances move patients and hospital personnel to the hospital during emergency while forex is used for purchasing essential drugs and equipment from abroad to effect treatments and operations in hospitals respectively.
   
   Assertions that fuel and forex are vital in the health delivery service in Malawi however, differ with what Malawi’s First Lady Callista Mutharika also founder of Callista Mutharika Safe Motherhood Foundation (CMSMF) aiming at among other things reducing deaths of pregnant women and their newborn babies said.
   
   “A good woman inspires a man, a brilliant woman interests him, a beautiful woman fascinates him, but a symathetic woman gets him,"these are beautiful words of Helen Rowland.
   
   And probably, borrowing from Rowland’s philosophy for her own benefit to stand by her husband at all costs, while speaking in Mzimba when she some weeks ago officially opened Matuli Health Centre constructed by Plan Malawi the First Lady defended her husband’s government on how it is being run regardless of outcries from other cross sections of Malawian society that there are some issues requiring to be addressed.
   
   Callista did it through charging at Non-Governmental-Organizations (NGOs) who are criticising her husband’s government failure to uphold the rule of law and good governance and identify longterm solutions to reccurring electricity blackouts, fuel and forex shortage in Malawi.
   
   Mrs. Mutharika simply advised NGOs which are championing ‘petty’ agendas like good governance, fuel and forex shortages and minority rights: They can go to hell.
   
   She accused some NGOs of soliciting money from international donors to ignite unrest and disturb peace in Malawi.
   
   “Eighty-five percent of Malawians live in villages. Do these people need fuel for vehicles or forex to travel outside? Maybe I should ask you villagers: do you need fuel as if you have cars or forex as if you do cross-border trade? No!” charged Callista who is being accused by Malawi's Civil Society Organizations of getting paid for charity work to the tune of K1.4 million (over $8300) per month from tax payers coffers hence calling government stop getting the money and return what she has already been paid.
   
   Added Callista:"What you need is subsidized fertilizer to have more maize, you eat and that’s all. We have problems, yes, but these NGOs should not cheat you to go to the streets because of these little issues.”
   
   Since time immemorial expectant women in Malawi especially in remote areas also with the highest fertility rate in the country as a mother has to bear not less than 6 children in her life time have been going to Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) to deliver their newborns.
   
   Of late however, most women (around 60 in every 100) according to the Ministry of Health in Malawi give birth at public hospitals rather than at home, which enables the mothers to receive the proper care they and their babies need.
   
   Like swarm of bees glued to a hive, Malawian pregnant women are now delivering newborn babies in public health facilities instead of going to TBAs because Malawi Government has laid down strategies to save mothers and their newborns.
   
   The strategies include building well equipped health centres and scaling up training of nurses and midwives in the country.
   
   Save the Children's Newborn Health Expert, Joy Lawn visited Malawi and Nepal and discovered that the two countries despite being many thousands of kilometers apart had affordable lifesaving care packages for mothers and their newborns.
   
   These include skilled attendance at childbirth; simple newborn care including breastfeeding, warmth and a breathing apparatus, if needed; Kangaroo Medical Care (KMC) for preterm babies; and antibiotics to fight infections.
   
   “The health care solutions for maternal and newborn health are well-known, proven and cost-effective,” said Lawn.
   
   She added:”They work, and they are affordable. With greater investment and a global commitment, we would save millions of children's lives.”
   
   Lawn said in sub-Sahara Africa region, Malawi is a shining star in saving the lives of children under 5 because much of the region is not.
   
   The United Nations (UN) says most African countries will not achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG number 4) of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015.
   
   But Malawi Health Equity Network (MEHN) National Coordinator Martha Kwataine said Malawi risk losing the gains it has made in child and maternal health due to fuel and forex shortages and electricity blackouts claiming that the three are already negatively affecting the smooth operations of the country's health sector.
   
   She disclosed that her organization instituted investigations that had revealed that Malawi’s recurring fuel shortages and electricity blackouts have been crippling patients’ lives.
   
   Kwataine said lack of fuel for instance has been paralysing Malawi’s patient referral system and causing deaths of some patients in complicated conditions because ambulances could not take them to referral hospitals on empty stomachs (empty fuel tanks).
   
   “During fuel crisis, we have been receiving phone calls from hospitals about deaths of patients due to non-functioning power generators and ambulances’ failure to take patients to referral hospitals for specialized treatment,” she said.
   
   Kwataine further explained that delays to refer complicated cases leads to the death of patients and singled out health centres in Rumphi northern Malawi as where transfer of patients to the district hospital for better treatment was a problem.
   
   “Even patients on life supporting machines could die due to power blackout and failure to operate generators because there was no fuel. In fact the most affected areas are Intensive Care Units (ICU) and theatres,” she said.
   
   A study by MEHN on the impact of fuel shortages also reveals that they are negatively affecting health delivery services to patients especially poor women and children in rural areas.
   
   “For example our studies have clearly show that patients in Northern Region of Malawi fail to get treatment at Mzuzu Central Hospital due to lack of fuel,” said Kwataine adding, “Almost daily[ Mzuzu Central Hospital] is affected by power interruptions. The generator at the hospital uses 20 to 25 litres of fuel per hour.”
   
   She disclosed that the research had also shown that there are days without electricity for more than 12 hours at Mzuzu Central Hospital.
   
   “It was also revealed during the study that the hospital spends around K60,000[$360] to K80,000 [$480]per day to run the generator,” said Kwataine adding that when diesel shortages hit Mzuzu or Rumphi during electricity blackouts patients’ lives are also compromized..
   
   “During the power cuts it means no oxygen supply for every sick patient; no light in theatre for life-saving surgery and deliveries with candles in Labor Wards,” said Kwataine.
   
   Hospital Administrators in public hospitals accross Malawi admitted that the country’s unending fuel shortages were crippling their hospital operations including putting lives of patients at many risks including death.
   
   “Due to fuel shortages our vehicle fleet is grounded hence failing to deliver patients to their respective homes after their discharge,” said District Health Officer (DHO) for Chitipa District Burton Jere.
   
   He further said due to the same fuel crisis his hospital was failing to deliver dead bodies and the deceased’s relatives to their respective homes.
   
   “As a result families of the deceased are spending huge sums of money to hire private vehicles to transport their dead. We are, also due to lack of fuel failing to administer operations on patients in the theatre since our stand by electircity generator set can not generate power without fuel,” said Jere adding, “The situation is putting lives of patients who are supposed to undergo for operations in the theatre at risk.”
   
   In a move to prevent patient deaths resulting from hospital equipment failure due to power supply cuts Malawi Government embarked on a programme of supplying public hospitals with back up electricity generators.
   
   This was after MEHN institituted an investigation of deaths at Mangochi District Hospital linked to hospital blackouts.
   
   The matter saw Malawi Government admitting through Ministry of Health that it appreciates indeed electricity blackouts in its hospitals are hindering their operations meant to save lives, therefore, it is to supply stand by generators to deal with the problem.
   
   But of late the diesel shortage in the country is failing to improve the situation as the generator sets can not run without diesel.
   
   "As government we appreciate the negative impact electricity blackouts are having on all the country's sectors including health. We have therefore lined up long time programmes to deal with the problem,"said newly appointed Energy Minister also former World Bank and IMF economist Goodall Gondwe.
   
   According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) in Zomba just less than 10 in every 100 of Malawi’s 13 million plus population are connected to the country's electricity system hence most citizens depend on wood as their source of energy.
   
   Escom says it is struggling to supply adequate electricity because of among others, load shading due to environmental degradation, dishonest clients who are not honoring bills in good time and vandalism of its structures by some people.
   
   In April this year a sigh of relief hovered over Malawi as in an effort to improve electricity generation in the country, the Barack Obama Government through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) initiative announced that it is to grant Malawi Government over K53 billion for rehabilitating Escom’s aging power generation plant infrastructure.
   
   But recently Washington says has temporaliy plugged off the main switch of the MCC deal until President Bingu wa Mutharika's government at Capital Hill in Lilongwe start respecting human rights and practicing good governance.
   
   
   In recognition that energy plays a great role in the delivery of health services Global Television & Solar (GTV& Solar) Ltd was certified by the Department of Energy and Mines and established in 2000.
   
   The company’s Managing Director Andrew Nkoloma said appreciating the link between energy and health, the country’s Ministry of Health was one of its partners.
   
   He disclosed that his company was working with Health Ministry to save lives in the country through among other things, installing and servicing vaccine fridges in which delicate vaccines are kept for the needy across the country.
   
   “These vaccines stored in these fridges have to be kept at a controlled temperature otherwise, they can easily expire before taken to the needy and to maintain such temperatures the fridges need energy,”said Nkoloma.
   
   
   Secretary for Nutrition, HIV and AIDS in President Mutharika’s Office Mary Shawa on her part explained the importance forex availability plays in Malawi’s health delivery service.
   
   “Forex availablity in the country is crucial because government always needs forex to purchase Anti-Retro-Viral drugs (ARVs) to prolong lives of HIV/AIDS patients on Anti-Retroviral-Treatment (ART) and other essential drugs as well as the purchase of equipment for treating patients including mothers and babies in public hospitals,” she said.
   
   So the poor including mothers and babies from rural areas may not be able to buy fuel because they have no cars, they do not use electricity for lighting and cooking in their grass thatched huts in their villages and their fingers may never land on foreign bank notes because they are not involved in international business transactions.
   
   However, the poor including mothers and babies still need fuel, forex and electricity because these either directly or indirectly affect their lives at some point for example to access the much needed quality, health delivery service in public hospitals to sustain their lives!
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Reactions

1. Posted on Thursday 15 March 2012 10:25

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   LarryPage

   

   
   28 berichten
   Lid sinds February 2012

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   Of course people need fuel to survive. Not only for their daily routine but also for their vehicles. As you can see there is a shortage of fuel in some areas and the best way to fight this is to install some Fuel Saving Parts on your car to regulate the use of fuel. Fuel is very important and so as vehicles.

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