Death During Childbirth Unacceptable – UNFPA
Agency Report
Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, UN Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA), has said that it is no longer acceptable for a woman to die during childbirth.
Osotimehin told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of an award dinner organized by the Nigeria Health Foundation in Newark, U.S.
The UNFPA chief said people should insist that both local and state governments must deliver healthcare to them.
According to him, if people fail to hold government accountable as far as healthcare is concerned the nation’s health problems will continue to persist.
“In the present job I have, it is very painful for me that I would hear and I would see women die during childbirth, as minister and as a doctor.
“I have seen women die needlessly because they don’t have care and because they don’t get care.
“So a woman who is in labour goes into a care centre and she bleeds to death. This is totally unacceptable.
“Those are things that in present day world must not occur at all. These are not things we cannot prevent.
“We cannot and should not ever leave everything to the hands of the government,” he said.
Osotimehin, a former Minister of Health in Nigeria, regretted that government had become disconnected from the people and urged well-meaning individuals and organisations to come to governments’ aid.
