Med student new “voice” of respectful maternal care

A medical student doing residency in community health has been chosen to be a voice for a campaign to make hospitals and health workers respect the women they attend to.Hajara Kera, of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, who was awarded the REAL award by White Ribbon Alliance in December, said the campaign for respectful […]

A medical student doing residency in community health has been chosen to be a voice for a campaign to make hospitals and health workers respect the women they attend to.
Hajara Kera, of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, who was awarded the REAL award by White Ribbon Alliance in December, said the campaign for respectful maternal care wanted “women to access care without their basic human rights being impacted on.”
The rights championed by the campaign constitute the new RMC policy pushed by the National Council of Health last year, which advocates want adopted and implemented.
Seven articles of rights in RMC include:
•    Freedom from harm and ill treatment
•    Right to information, informed consent and refusal, and respect for women’s choices and preferences, including the right to her choice of companionship during maternity care
•    Right to privacy and confidentiality
•    Treatment with dignity and respect
•    Right to equality, freedom from discrimination, and equitable care
•    Right to healthcare and to the highest attainable level of health
•    And right to liberty, autonomy, self-determination, and freedom from coercion.

“It is a shift from the way things have been done all these years,” Kera told Daily Trust.
“We want people to understand that it is not just about delivering the service but delivering the service respectfully.”
“Simply put, someone should be treated with empathy, care, respect and best practice.”
Proponents of the RMC say continuous disregard and ill treatment of women in hospitals by health workers have doused confidence in health centres.
In late December, stakeholders meeting under the aegis of White Ribbon Alliance outlined ways to guarantee that the seven articles of RMC become ingrained in workers and patients.
But proposing insurance to pay for hospital so that women unable to pay their bills are not detained after delivery has been controversial.
So too has been the balance between confidentiality and privacy.
Kera says issues of respectful care cut across the entire health sector but are “extremely important when it comes to pregnant women.”
“More women die from pregnancy related illnesses. We want that to stop and it is something that we can stop.
“A lot of women refuse to access care because of these abuses. There is no reason for that.
“When they know they will be respected when they are accessing [health services], I don’t think we will have issues of lack of utilization on the side of these women.”