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The 2012 theme was “Empower Rural Women — End Hunger and Poverty”.
Days after the global commemoration, it is fair for our leaders to remember the plight of pregnant rural women, especially those affected by drought and those who have been victims of gender-based violence.
With only three years left before the deadline for the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), our country is still struggling to bring about change and development of women. The situation seems to be getting worse with each passing day.

Many women are still walking long distances to the nearest hospital. In rural areas, women cannot afford to pay maternity fees, let alone afford to buy the required material for use during delivery which includes gloves, surgical razors, thread and medication.
This situation will make it impossible for our health sector to meet the 2015 deadline, particularly MDG Four and Five which call for the reduction of child mortality

and the improvement of maternal health respectively.

The provincial medical director for Matabeleland North, Dr Nyasha Masuka, said there is a long way to go before the country could be confident of meeting the MDG deadline in 2015.
“The baseline for meeting these goals is that there should be resources available. We need human resources, structures, medicines for us to achieve goal Four, Five and Six (which seeks to combat HIV, malaria and other communicable diseases).

“The issue of geographic access is also a problem because as I speak many people are finding it hard to go to the clinics because they are far away [from their homes] or because the living standards are so poor they cannot pay anything.  Indirect costs involved in seeking medical attention worsen the situation,” he said.
Many pregnant women across the country, but mainly in rural areas, still have no access to proper maternal health as health standards continue to drop. This is worsened by maternal fees that are too high for an average rural woman who survives on less than  $1 per week to afford.

Some women in Matabeleland North still walk from between 15-50km to the nearest clinic or hospital. Having to do this while pregnant compromises their health and that of the unborn baby.
Just a few weeks ago, a 27-year-old woman, an unemployed mother of six, gave birth to triplets after walking 18 km from her homestead in Ntobi area in Insuza to the nearest clinic.

She gave birth to triplets, coincidently on International Women’s Day, when issues like access to maternal health care are advocated. 
This case is one of the many cases where women in rural areas have to risk their lives and that of the unborn baby by going through childbirth without expert care.
Some women like her have been forced to deliver their children at home where there would be no convenient atmosphere or emergency facilities to save both the mother and the baby.

Speaking to Chronicle recently, a 25-year-old woman from Lupane who was only identified as MaKhumalo, said she walked about 30 km to the nearest hospital for her one-year-old baby to access medical attention.
“I am struggling to make ends meet because we are poor. This is my second child and the father is unsupportive. I walk very long distances to the nearest hospital if any of them is sick,” said MaKhumalo.

She said besides the fact that she was poor, she feared for the health of her child.
Another pregnant woman, also from Lupane district, said she walked many kilometres to hospital.
“I walk long distances to hospital and this makes it impossible for me to go for medical tests required from pregnant women.

“I am grateful because St Luke’s has introduced women’s shelter known as amadumba so we camp while waiting to deliver,” said the woman.
She said the shelter was a refuge to many women who stayed far away from the hospital.
“It is now better because we pay nothing, at least we have skilled midwives to help us,” she said.
MDG One focuses on the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and one of its aims is to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day.

MDG Four aims to reduce child mortality rates and reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
MDG Five aims at improving maternal health and reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel.

Nursing staff at Mbembesi Clinic in Insuza, Matabeleland North Province, have been forced to conduct deliveries of babies under candlelight amid revelations that the area has been out of electricity for the past month.
St Luke’s Hospital, one of the hospitals in the country which has a school of midwifery, recently launched free user fees for pregnant mothers in a move to entice scores of pregnant mothers who opt to deliver in their homes because they cannot afford hospital fees.

The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare recently received $120 million from Unicef through the Department for International Development to support maternal and child health in the country.

Unicef representative Dr Peter Salama said the objective of the fund was to eliminate user fees for women and children and its target was to benefit more than 30 000 people including children less than five years of age and pregnant women.
“A total of 60 percent of midwives posts are vacant because there is a shortage of qualified midwives. This means that we have a long way to go,” he said.

The district administrator for Kusile Rural District, Dr George Mutizira, said most women in Lupane still walked many kilometres to the nearest hospital, thus jeopardising their health.
“We are trying to have qualified midwives attend to expecting mothers but we are faced with a number of challenges.  [One of them is that] we have a few qualified midwives who are willing to work in rural areas,” he said.

While the Government has constructed clinics in rural areas countrywide to enable communities in remote areas have access to health services, people in these places often have no access to reasonable quality medical care.
In fact, some people still travel long distances to the nearest clinic or hospital. They even lose a lot of money in accessing specialist services in towns and cities, as most  district hospitals have no capacity to provide specialist services.

In a recent report compiled by four districts in Matabeleland North — Kusile, Nkayi, Tsholotsho and Bubi — hospital authorities expressed concern over the ever-increasing shortage of accommodation, ambulances among other basic requirements.
Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe recently said Zimbabwe’s maternal mortality rate was alarming. She said it was a disaster that every day, the country loses almost eight women during labour. She stressed the need for women to seek antenatal care early.

DPM Khupe said it should be made mandatory that all pregnant women do not pay user fess so as to enable them have access to treatment and medication.