First Lady Grace Mugabe
yesterday stunned people attending World Blood Donor Day commemorations in
Chinhoyi when she called for rapists to be beheaded saying they were inflicting
untold suffering on women.
"Those who commit heinous
crime like rape should be immediately sent to the gallows," said Mugabe
while officiating at the event. The commemorations come at a time the country
is facing a critical shortage of blood. World Health Organisation (WHO) country
representative David Okello said it was sad that many mothers were dying during
childbirth. Okello said statistics showed that one out of every 38 women died
from pregnancy-related complications, particularly relating to bleeding during
childbirth.
"No mother should be
allowed to die giving birth to life. This is a very sad thing and the most
common cause of a mother dying during childbirth is bleeding. In Zimbabwe we
are losing too many mothers," he said. Minister of Health and Child Care,
David Parirenyatwa also said mothers were losing lives during child birth
unnecessarily as blood had become too expensive. He said blood was now out of
reach of many ordinary Zimbabweans. A pint of blood costs between US$80 to
US$240.
"We are losing 525 women
out of every 100 000 pregnant women. That is too much and one of the major
reasons is shortage of blood," he said. Parirenyatwa said 15 000 units of
blood purchased through Healthy Transfusion Fund were not enough and it was now
high time fiscus allocated money towards blood procurement.
Original article: http://allafrica.com/stories/201406150174.html
No comments:
Post a Comment