The Management of the Ho Municipal Hospital on Monday met with traditional authorities of Asogli to discuss matters pertaining to child deliveries and related cases at the hospital.

The meeting was necessitated by criticisms in Ho and its environs questioning the capacity of the hospital to safely handle maternal cases.

Dr Gafatsi Normanyo, Medical Superintendent led the team from the hospital while Togbe Kasa III, Chief of Ahoe, a suburb of Ho, led the 13-member team from the traditional authorities.

Dr Normanyo said “uninformed” perceptions had led to verbal attacks on hospital staff within and outside the hospital premises, triggering demands by doctors for transfers from the hospital.

He presented an audit of maternal deaths at the facility from 2005 to 2011 with a summary of the contributing factors.

There were 14 deaths out of 1912 deliveries in 2011, 13 out 1986 deliveries in 2010, 10 out of 1933 births in 2009, 10 out 1723 births in 2008, 14 out of 1619 births in 2007, eight out of 1276 deliveries in 2006 and 14 out 1067 in 2005.

Dr Normanyo listed non-attendance of antenatal clinic, delay in reporting to hospital, severe hypertension and anaemia as some of the contributory factors to the deaths.

The rest are non-availability of oxygen, prolonged labour before referral and non-availability of fresh or frozen plasma.

Dr Normanyo, who has been working as Superintendent of the Hospital since 2006, said none of his staff had flouted clinical procedures leading to these deaths.

He said the hospital had been making all efforts within its resources to improve clinical performance and he had personally lobbied doctors to accept postings to the hospital.

Dr Normanyo said was he was, therefore, disappointed at the seeming rebuff being experienced by his staff by people.

For his part, Togbe Kasa explained that the traditional authorities had had to persuade some town folks from street protest against the perceived non-performance at the hospital.

He said he also led the chiefs to lodge a complaint over the issue with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Regional Directorate, and was, therefore, grateful for the briefing.

Togbe Kasa suggested the building of formal linkages between hospital management and traditional authorities and more frequent briefings.

He also suggested periodic education on maternal health issues in the communities.

Other issues raised by the chiefs include poor attitude of hospital staff towards clients and the need for hospital management to seek the support of the Municipal Assembly in certain areas.

Mr Jasper Ansong, Hospital Administrator, gave the undertaken that management would continue to pursue improvement in all areas of health delivery at the facility.

He said the hospital would also intensify its evaluations to raise performance where it had to.