Tag Archives: Amos Nyaka

Health

Unsafe abortion is a silent pandemic in Malawi

Dorica Mtenje

LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Malawi is said to continue experiencing high mortality rate due to unsafe abortions as the country’s laws does not recognize safe abortion.

Vice chairperson for Coalition of Prevention of unsafe abortions (COPUA) Amos Nyaka reveled this during a day long media training in Lilongwe.

Nyaka observes that women in Malawi face harsh reality “When it comes to reproductive rights as unsafe abortions is posing grave risks to women’s health and well being”.

He said unsafe abortions is accounting to up to 18 percent of maternal deaths in the country according to Malawi unsafe abortion 2017 report.

“Many opt for unsafe abortions methods due to prevailing restrictive law and there is a high number of people in despair,” said Nyaka.

He said Bwaila alone receives an average of 14 cases of post-abortion cases daily which according to him is the highest as the facility serves as a referral hospital.

Nyaka says, “Unsafe abortions is posing long-lasting complications for women and girls such as infections, infertility and deaths as cases of unintended pregnancies remains high”.

In his remarks, Center for solutions Journalism, Executive Director, Brian Ligomeka said Malawi has the highest maternal mortality due to religious beliefs .

Ligomeka said Malawi cannot achieve it’s sustainable development goal with the religious mindset that regard safe abortion as a sin.

“Parliamentarians reject the safe abortion bill which was seeking to address all unsafe abortion issues due to religious beliefs,”said Ligomeka.

For some years now civil society organizations have been advocating on the legalisation of safe abortions inline with what Malawian women are enduring in absence of the safe abortion law enactment.

Malawi

Malawi health system not ready to fight Covid 19

Richard Kayenda 2 Comments

Written by Richard Kayenda

Dr. Amos Nyaka

It is now not a secret that Malawi’s health system is far from being ready to put Corona Virus to sleep should the situation slip out of hand.

According to the former President of the Society of Medical Doctors (SMD) in the country, Dr Amos Nyaka, Malawi’s health system does not have enough equipment and personnel who are specially trained to treat patients suffering from Covid 19.

While speaking to one of the radio stations on Sunday, Dr Nyaka said since the inception of the Pandemic in December last year, it is only three medical doctors who were sent abroad to undergo a special training on how to tackle Covid 19.

Dr Nyaka, who on Saturday resigned from his position as the president of SMD, did not mince any words, but to say that the risk allowances for health workers that the Head of State announced to have been increased is not even enough; considering the nature of the job of health workers.

Dr Nyaka said if Malawi is to win the battle of fighting Covid 19, there is need for the government to equip all the hospitals in the country with enough personal protective equipment and also to motivate the health care workers with better risk allowances. He also hinted that the government needs to isolate all the elderlies who are sixty years old or above, for they are the most vulnerable.

On Saturday, President Arthur Peter Mutharika announced new preventive measures from the Covid 19 Pandemic. Among them: he directed the treasury to reduce the salaries of the President and cabinet ministers by 10% and direct the proceeds to the recruitment of more medical personnel who will help in the fight against the disease and also increase risk allowances of the health workers. He also thus, directed the Ministry of Health and Population to recruit 2,000 more health workers to help fight Covid 19.

So far, Malawi has registered four confirmed cases of Covid 19; three of which are from Lilongwe and one is from Blantyre.