Mzimba’s health crisis: half of children born die within a month

Lack of adequate funding has affected operations of health services in Mzimba district.

This was disclosed by Mzimba District Commissioner Thomas Chirwa when he was commenting on a report that was released by M’mbelwa District Council.

The report shows that 19 babies out of the nearly 44 who are born each day in the district  die within 28 days due to poor health delivery and that two pregnant of women die monthly from labour complications.

Chirwa called on non-governmental organisations and legislators to urgently support the health sector which gets inadequate funding from government.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the meeting where the report was presented, Chirwa said that the crisis has affected the delivery of essential services by all public hospitals in Mzimba North and South.

“This is so because parliament transposed the budgetary allocation for the district with that of another smaller district in the country, a process which was difficult to reverse,” Chirwa said.

He gave an example of Mzimba North District Health Office which was allocated K1.6m while Mzimba South was only allocated K3.6m despite the district having more than 50 health centres.

Chirwa has called on non-governmental organizations and legislators in the district to assist the health sector in cash and kind, saying as of now all ambulances have been grounded hence no referral services are being conducted though they have more patients who need to get treatment at Mzuzu Central Hospital.

The study was conducted by a district team and facilitated by the Mama-Ye project which aims at bringing transparency and accountability in health financing.