Medics luring mothers with gifts

Women line up during the screening of malnourished children at the health centre. Photo by Bill Oketch.

Women in Karamoja sub-region are being offered “gifts” to lure them to access health services.
Authorities and organisations working in the region such as World Vision and UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) have confirmed that fortified food, sanitary towels and soaps are being given to make delivery in health facilities attractive to women.

“They (women) only come to seek the services when there is food, if there is no food the turn up is [always] very low,” says Lillian Adwar, a midwife at Karamoja Diocese Development Organisation (KDDO), said.

“If there is no food they don’t bring the child even when the child is due for immunisation. They have to wait until the report reaches home that there is food then they just now think of bringing a child for immunisation.”

Bigger numbers
World Vision’s regional operation manager, Benson Gard Okabo, acknowledged the number of women seeking reproductive health and maternity services has increased over the past five years because of several interventions and health facilities can hardly cope with the demand.

The District health officer (DHO) Kotido, Dr Phillip Olinga, agreed: “We still have challenges but also in the context that there has been great improvement over the years. Approximately half of the women in Kotido district now deliver in health facilities.”

He said mothers are given gifts to show them that there is a great different between delivering at home and delivering in the health facility.

Food insecurity
Karamoja sub-region is known to be a food insecure area and as a result, a significant number of pregnant women who visit health facilities for antenatal care come when they are malnourished.

“So when they hear that there is food at the health centres, given the need for food, they come. It is working the magic because mothers come and get both food and health services,” says the WFP official in charge of Kotido and Kaabong.

Food plays a great role in the health of mothers and newborns.
Dr Olinga explained: “If a pregnant woman is malnourished, managing pregnancy and labour will become very difficult; she is most likely to become anaemic and when you have anaemia you are more prone to bleeding during labour, and bleeding is number one cause of death in pregnant women. Anaemic women also produce malnourished children.

Last year, 4,909 women were delivered by skilled health service providers in Kotido against the target of 8,950, representing an achievement of about 58 per cent.

There has been food support for people in Karamoja since early 1960s. The documentary To Live with Herds, which won an award at the 1972 Venice Film Festival, captured not only the traditional way of life of the Karimojong but also an official in Idi Amin’s government distributing food to people from his office in Kotido.

According to the Resilience Analysis carried out by the Intergovernmental Authority, Karamoja sub-region has experienced multiple stresses in the recent past.
Most prominent among those are drought, floods, livestock and crop diseases and insecurity.