Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The World Health Organisation has developed a checklist that ensures the presence of essential practices during the childbirth process. According to demographic indicators, around 280 women per 100,000 die of pregnancy-related issues and a majority of them die during the childbirth process.The checklist has been introduced in some of the hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including hospitals in Pabbi and Haripur.

A hospitalworker said that the practice of following a checklist was considered as a burden by the doctors and nurses initially. “However it has become almost impossible for us to administer the child birth process without the checklist now because it simplifies the entire process and we don’t have to worryabout whether a certain medication has been administered or not,” said a nurse who wished not to be named.

The checklist provides necessary action if a patient suffers from a list of possible problems during the childbirth process and determining the status of labour. According to a doctor, such a checklist should also be introduced in other departments of the hospital such as the OT section.

“In the OT section, even we being doctors are confused as to whether a certain medication has been administered or not. Similarly,sometimes we ignore information such as diabetics and blood pressure because of the work burden. Such mistakes cancost lives,”he added.

Gynaecologist Shahzia Haroon said: “Most of the mothers die because they cannot determine the right place to go when a situation gets complicated or in case of emergency delivery. We give referral slips to the patients but they are useless because we do not have the means to inform a hospital regarding special cases.”

She said that even after informing the crowded hospitals, there is no such method to receive the patient on emergency basis and patients suffer tremendously before they can get past the paperwork.

Patients face problems in transport and identifying the right time to approach health facilities. Lack of privacy at Pabbi Hospital is another issue where emotional parents even barge in when patients are lying naked in the labour room.

Ms Nawaz, a nurse at a labour room, says: “Sometimespeople blame the staff who areconstantly shifted in the hospital and only some of us have received training about how to follow the checklist, not the others.”