Marriama, a 28-year-old pregnant woman went into labour at 2.00 pm on Saturday. She was rushed to the hospital and her husband was told on arrival that the facility does not offer maternity services after 5.00 pm.

Marriama was then rushed again to another facility in the neighbourhood only to be told again that there’s no midwife on duty at the time. By the time Maxwell, Marriama’s husband got to the Ridge hospital after an hour the baby had died in her womb. Marriama also died because she had bled too much while the labour pangs raged during the taxi ride to the hospital.

Many pregnant women have also died under similar circumstances throughout the country. So in a move to increase access to maternity services in the country, Sanford World Clinics have introduced a 24-hour maternity service in its facilities.

Speaking at the launch of the Sanford Health 24-hour maternity care at the Sanford clinic in Adenta, the President of the Sanford World Clinics, Dr Benjamin Taylor, said a lot of maternal and neonatal deaths occur in Ghana because citizens do not have adequate access to the care they need.

According to Dr Taylor the Sanford brand exists to extend basic essential health services to Ghanaians in urban and suburban areas.

“People die in Ghana not because they cannot afford to pay for health care, but because they do not have access.” Dr. Taylor said.

He said Sanford is working hard to ensure that after extending access to the public, the quality of the healthcare they receive is of international standards. Dr Taylor added that to achieve excellence in quality health care, Sanford has signed unto an international standardization regime called SafeCare, which assesses the level of quality and delivered at health facilities across the globe.

“Two of Sanfords facilities have attained level 4 SafeCare accreditation which means that we are on a remarkable path to ensuring improved quality care to all our clients."

Safecare partnership with Sanford

For his part, Dr Maxwell Antwi, the Country Director for PharmAccess Ghana which partners Sanford to implement the SafeCare program said Sanford World Clinics is among 1500 hospitals and clinics in Africa which have subscribed to the structured quality improvement program of SafeCare.

He said, “Sanford world clinics is one of the clinics in Ghana which have one of the highest scores of SafeCare. SafeCare levels are from one to five and one of Sanford Clinics is at level 4, what it means is that the clinic is two steps away from international best practice.”

Dr Antwi explained that SafeCare is beyond clinical quality it goes further to look at leadership and management, risk management, OPD, information management, facility management and support. He said the partnership with Sanford has yielded very positive results.

Partnership with Ghana Health Service

At the launch, the health director of the La Nkantanan Municipal Assembly lauded the efforts by Sanford World Clinics to add the 24-hour maternity care to the range of quality services delivered at the Adenta Sanford Clinic.

Priscila Siaw said the 24-hour maternity care will greatly enhance the progress made by the municipal health directorate to meet the target of achieving zero maternal mortality within the La Nkwantanan Municipality.

“From today, pregnant women would not have to travel to other parts of Accra to deliver. This will largely reduce the risk of losing the baby and mothers on the road to a facility that offers the quality maternity care needed.” She said.