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Maternal mortality is a women’s empowerment emergency
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A woman who dies in childbirth does not only lose her life. She loses every plan she was still building. It could be plans to grow her business, achieve higher education or create a brighter future for her children.
Maternal mortality is a direct blow to women’s empowerment because empowerment and potential mean little if a woman cannot survive the act of giving life.
The baby survives. Sometimes the baby does not. Either way, a family is left asking the same unbearable question: why should a woman go to a health facility to give life and never return home?
Recent national data presented by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) revealed that 955 maternal deaths were recorded in 2025, up from 779 in 2016.
The figures were disclosed by the Director of the GHS Family Health Division, Dr Kennedy Brightson, at a February 2026 workshop on pre-eclampsia and maternal anaemia, where he noted that hypertensive disorders remain a leading cause.
Separate concerns raised at a national dialogue in late 2025 had already painted a disturbing picture of the maternal health crisis. The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, and Deputy Chief of Staff, Oye Bampoe Addo during the dialogue called for urgent and coordinated national action to address the problem.
Successive governments have introduced measures to protect mothers and reduce preventable deaths, but the numbers tell us that far more must be done.
The time for incremental action is over. Ghana must act with greater urgency, stronger commitment and sustained investment to ensure that no woman pays with her life for the privilege of bringing another life into the world.
Maternal death must be treated with the urgency of a national emergency because that is exactly what it is!
This deadly menace is not only a health problem, but a gender equality and development crisis.
A woman’s life should not be the price of motherhood
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has repeatedly stressed that most maternal deaths are preventable. Major causes, according to the WHO include severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure disorders, complications during delivery and unsafe abortion. Prevention requires more than telling women to attend hospital. Care must be available, affordable, timely and good, backed by skilled personnel, working emergency services, reliable supplies and faster ambulances.
Antenatal care is not optional
Women must be empowered with information. Pregnancy is not a condition to be managed with rumours or myths. Regular antenatal care matters because dangerous complications, especially pre-eclampsia, can be detected early through warning signs such as severe headaches, visual disturbances and swelling of the hands and face.
In some communities, swollen feet are dismissed as normal or explained through myths, including the belief that it signals a woman is carrying a boy. Such beliefs delay care, and a pregnant woman should never gamble with her life because a symptom has been explained away by tradition.
A caesarean section is not a curse
One of the most dangerous misconceptions in childbirth, among some rural women especially, is the belief that a caesarean section represents failure, weakness or a spiritual problem. It does not. It is a medical procedure that can save the life of a mother, her baby or both, and no woman should reject one out of fear of ridicule or religious condemnation. The goal of childbirth is for mother and baby to survive, not to prove a woman can endure labour.
Religious leaders carry real responsibility here. Faith should support medical care, not stand in opposition to it. A woman who undergoes a medically necessary caesarean has not failed, she has been helped to protect her life and her child’s.
Referral should not become a death sentence in people’s minds
There is troubling fear surrounding referral to major hospitals. Some families hear stories of people dying after referral and conclude that referral itself signals impending death, which creates dangerous delay. Referral is often necessary precisely because a woman needs specialised care. This does not excuse the health system from scrutiny, but fear and misinformation must not stop women from reaching the care they urgently need.
Maternal mortality is not a problem affecting only poor, rural or uneducated women. Poverty raises risk, but educated and financially stable women also face severe complications. Every woman deserves quality maternal healthcare.
Ghana must move from mourning to more action
According to the WHO, more than 700 women globally died every day in 2023 from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, with sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia accounting for the overwhelming majority. Ghana should not treat each maternal death as unfortunate but inevitable. Every death must raise questions: was the woman monitored, did she seek care early, was referral timely, did the facility have adequate staff, blood and medicine? The answers must lead to action.
A society cannot claim to empower women while accepting preventable deaths in pregnancy and childbirth as “normal.” The health system must be strengthened and communities educated, so that families stop pressuring women to reject medical intervention.
Every maternal death is a devastating failure that demands immediate action, accountability and results!
A call to Africa’s leaders
Leadership is measured by whose lives are protected, not just whose economies grow. Every maternal death recorded on a ministry’s desk represents a woman who trusted her country with her life and was let down. Budgets must reach the last clinic, not just the capital. Policies mean nothing if a rural mother still bleeds to death waiting for an ambulance that never comes. Africa cannot rise while burying the women who carry its future. Let this be the generation of leaders who choose accountability and decisive action over anything else!
By Raissa Sambou
The writer is a children’s rights advocate and the founder of The Raissa Child Protection Initiative.
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Most people do not consider the effect that their statements could have on others, given their pedigree in society.
The crazy rush for fame is really influencing a lot of people to do everything and anything to attract followers on social media platforms.
Some Christian leaders have destroyed the faith of some young Christians by their words and actions.
A Pastor who is popular on social media, made a statement to the effect that, Pastors pray for people to get jobs but there are no jobs for them to go for. The question that readily comes to mind is that, why pray for something you do not believe is achievable, that is something that God is not going to answer?
When a Pastor makes such a statement, it shakes the foundation of a lot of young believers especially, in churches where the Pastor has made the members to believe that he is more or less their Jesus.
Members begin to lose trust in Men of God when such statements are made, and eventually in Christianity.
When someone calls you and dispatches you to execute a mission, you go out there to execute his expressed instructions. You do not go out there to do things to please yourself but to do things that are in line with the instruction received so as to please the one who sent you.
Any Pastor who claims he is called by God into the Pastoral ministry, always seeks to act in a manner that seeks to please the Lord. He or she does not draw attention to himself or herself but goes about things in a manner that projects Jesus. Those who are really called are never in a rush to engage in self promotion antics but are always focused to preach Christ and him crucified to save mankind.
They do not make controversial comments that shifts attention from Jesus unto themselves. The called ones, are careful in their delivery of sermons with the intention of glorifying God.
In the case of the Pastor I earlier talked about, what he said he does, is a deliberate deception because if you know there are no jobs and yet praying for people to get non-existent jobs, then that is deception.
He is consciously or unconsciously portraying men of God as charlatans. This contradicts the numerous testimonies that abound of people getting job opportunities after being prayed for.
What prayer does is to activate God’s favour for somebody to remember you, just simply offer you a job opportunity or for your eyes to open to an existing opportunity. I am a living testimony of what prayer can do as far as jobs are concerned.
To preach that Pastors praying for people to get jobs is an error, shows that, that Pastor is just ignorant or is not called by God but has called himself into the Pastoral Ministry because those God calls, he equips to teach correctly.
In Genesis Chapter 21, we see a maidservant Hagar, who had been sacked from her master’s house together with her child and was wandering in the desert and desperately needed water for her child.
The Bible says that God opened her eyes and she saw water and she used it to refresh her son. The water had been there all the time but it took prayer, for God to open her eyes to see opportunity of water and that is exactly what prayer does for the believer. Prayer provides ideas that a child of God can implement to create a business to get wealth. It is not everybody that should go look for a job from someone.
Some people are supposed to be job creators to employ other people. It is through prayer, that the revelation would come for what is to be done and therefore for a man of God to make such a statement, demeaning prayer, smacks of self-calling and not divine calling. God bless.
By Lord Kiss-Mensah
The driver stopped the vehicle at the gate of the big fenced property along the Nsawam Highway, and Kakraba stepped out to meet the several workers who had gathered to wait for him. He greeted them and went to straight to the point.
‘Gentlemen, I am glad to see that you have almost completed the clearing of the land. I’m happy to report that we have concluded all arrangements with Nana Serebour, and construction of the palace will start in a few days.
I will need you to go and level the ground, and come back to start this project. Some workers from a construction company will come and join us to start the project. My plan is to build twenty houses in four months, then we will do twenty more until we reach two hundred.
I am relying on you to help me deliver good quality work to satisfy our clients, and as I have already indicated to you, I will reward you for your work’. After an hour’s discussion, he closed the meeting and moved to drive away. Wofa Yaw drew closer.
‘Director, can you please spare me five minutes? I would like to discuss a small issue’. ‘Why Wofa Yaw, your wife has threatened to leave you?’ ‘No, Director’. My wife will never leave me. This concerns a young niece of mine’.
‘I hope it’s something I can help with. Please sit in the car and let me hear you’. ‘Boss, my niece Beesiwa is a polytechnic graduate, very beautiful and with very good character.
Unfortunately, her parents virtually forced her into a relationship with an idiot based in the US, which impacted her badly. She has now recovered from that experience, and boss, I am respectfully asking if you would find a job for her.
I promise you that you will never regret it’. ‘Well, Wofa Yaw, let me meet her and speak with her. I may be able to help, maybe not in the way you will expect, but let me meet her. I will not be back here till after a week, but I will be at the office the whole of next week. You can come with her’.
‘On Monday morning, Wofa Yaw and Beesiwa were seated at the office by nine. Three young ladies welcomed them warmly, offered them soft drinks, and assured them that Kakraba would be there shortly, and got seated behind computers with large screens showing various building designs. Kakraba walked in and greeted them warmly, and after chatting with the three ladies, he ushered Wofa Yaw to his office’. ‘Director, this is my niece, Beesiwa. I mentioned her to you when you came to Nsawam’. ‘Yes indeed. Madam Beesiwa, you are very beautiful, as your uncle said. Wofa Yaw is my colleague.
We have just started a building project that will take about three to four years. He mentioned that you have a very small problem, so I said I would like to meet you, and see how I can help. So Beesiwa, please tell me a little about yourself’.
Beesiwa described her childhood, her school experience, her brief work at the bank, and the nasty episode with Sammy Abrokwa which shattered her peaceful life, and how she had been recovering’.
‘I am really sorry to hear this. Now, here is what we are going to do. We are a small but very busy company. The three ladies over there spend most of the day on site, and come back to report on their work in the morning.
I have three main projects. The big one is an estate project in Nsawam, where your uncle is one of my main colleagues. I need a personal assistant who can take care of my activities, especially when I am not in town.
Now, we will have to start with trust. Based on what I know about Wofa Yaw, and based on what you yourself have told me, I think we can start on a sound basis. So, Wofa Yaw will take you to my home. You can move into one of the four guest rooms. I will give you a good phone and a laptop. I will arrange computer lessons for you’. ‘Sir, I have taken some computer lessons, and I have even done graphics and web design’. ‘Fantastic! Now, Wofa Yaw, take her home. My sister Kuukuwa will meet you and show you round, and you can return to Koforidua. When would you like to start work?’ ‘Sir, I would like to start today, but I would need to go and bring my things’. ‘No problem. Take a taxi to my house, meet my sister, and let me know what you decide’.
Kakraba and the three ladies met with some bank officials to conclude on the sale of the three buildings at Adabraka.
They closed at five-thirty, and after rewarding the ladies for their hard work, he got home just after dark. He was surprised to find Kuukuwa and Beesiwa sitting at table enjoying supper. ‘What’s happening here?’ her said. ‘Beesiwa, I thought you would return to Koforidua?’ ‘She changed her mind’, Kuukuwa said. ‘We went to the Mall and bought a few things for her, and we came back to cook. She has made some nice changes to your bedroom. And she cooked a couple of interesting things. Sit down, we will serve you’.
‘Well, I certainly can’t refuse that. It’s been a busy day. So what’s the plan now? Will Beesiwa go to Koforidua tomorrow, gather her stuff together and come down? ‘No, I will stay here for a while. Kuukuwa bought me things that I need, so I may go back next week. I’m ready to start work. What would you like me to start with?’
‘Well, you can come to the office tomorrow morning, meet the three girls and get a feel of what we do. Since you are living here, at least for now, we can discuss the plans for the next few weeks. Sometimes there are gaps when I travel up north. You can take care of things from now. I think the girls would like having someone like you around’.
