Banking on African Mothers: Chase Bank donates Sh30 million for training of midwives in Africa

Chase Group Foundation Chairman Parmain Ole Narikae (right) presents a cheque worth Kes30million to Amref Health Africa Director General Dr Teguest Guerma during a press briefing. With them are part of the midwives to be trained. PHOTO: COURTESY

Nairobi, Kenya: Chase Group Foundation has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Amref Health Africa’s Stand Up for African Mothers campaign, which aims to train 15,000 midwives in Africa by 2015.

Speaking while presenting a cheque of Ksh.30 million to Amref Health Africa towards the initiative, Chase Group Foundation Chairman Parmain Ole Narikae noted that Kenya’s vision to become a middle–income economy with high quality of life for all Kenyans by the year 2030 is a tall order in light of maternal morbidity and mortality rates in the country. Narikae noted that most cases of women dying from complications in pregnancy and childbirth were due to inaccessibility to trained health care and functioning health facilities.

This, he noted was alarming and emphasised the need for stakeholders to collaborate to enhance maternal health and to use platforms such as the Stand Up for African Mothers campaign to work towards attaining the Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG).

“As an ethical institution, we are beholden to respond to social and economic issues that affect our communities. Women empowerment is one of the core agenda of our Foundation’s corporate social responsibility investment. Our commitment to continuously partner with Amref Health Africa and other stakeholders to improve maternal health care has an important bearing on our socio- economic development,” said Mr. Narikae.

Mr Narikae revealed that the Group is focusing its social initiatives on women empowerment, health and environment. He said that influencing stakeholders on health issues, especially improved maternity mortality and sexual reproductive health in any form, would be of immense benefit to the people at all levels of society.

Speaking at the same function, Amref Health Africa Director General Dr Teguest Guerma thanked Chase Group Foundation for their dedication to the cause of maternal health and for practically demonstrating their concern for mothers.

“Mothers are the heart of communities. They hold families, communities and entire nations together. We must continue to ensure that they are well taken care of as they go through the important process of bringing new life into the world. A trained midwife can ensure that a mother and her baby survive. That is why we have decided to continue with this campaign – to ensure that we train as many midwives as possible,” said Dr Guerma

Despite concerted efforts by the Government in collaboration with Amref Health Africa and other stakeholders, Africa (Kenya included), still has a long way to go to stop the needless deaths of mothers. Sub-Saharan African has the highest maternal mortality ratio – 510 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, or 162,000 maternal deaths a year. This is 56 per cent of all maternal deaths per year worldwide (WHO UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank, Trends in Maternal Mortality 1990 – 2013).

Maternal mortality in Kenya currently stands approximately 488 deaths per 100,000 live births, which amounts to 20 women a day dying during as a result of complications related to pregnancy or child birth.

The Stand Up for African Mothers campaign was launched in October 2011 and was initially targeted to end in 2015. Recognising that midwives are key to saving life, particularly in rural parts of the continent, the campaign sought to raise global awareness of the importance of midwives and to raise funds to train more of them. To date, a total of 5090 midwives have been trained in seven out of 13 sub-Saharan countries that were targeted because of their poor maternal health statistics. This number includes 70 trainee nurses in Kenya who have received scholarships from Chase Bank for the midwifery module.