Women and health key to development success
Margot James, Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party for women, joined members of the Women’s League of the Ugandan Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) on a delivery of subsistence items to the maternity ward of Milunga Hospital in Kampala. The visit was part of a weekend of activities to mark International Women’s Day.
Maternity services in Uganda are grossly inadequate. Milunga Hospital is Uganda’s largest hospital; yet even here women have to bring all their provisions in to hospital with them, including a sleeping mat in case there are no beds. On the occasion of Margot’s visit there were almost as many women sitting or lying on their sleeping mats in the corridors outside the wards as there were in beds on the wards.
Women lying on the floor were about to give birth, one woman’s waters had broken and she was there on the floor with no professional support in sight. Had complications arisen it would be difficult to see how disaster for either mother or baby, or both, could have been averted.
Death during, or following, childbirth is the leading cause of death among women of childbearing age in the developing world. The situation in Milunga Hospital, where maternity services are stretched to breaking point, is avoidable according to opposition politicians in Uganda.
At an FDC rally to mark International Women’s Day former government minister Dr Miria Matembe told the crowd that the people of Uganda, especially the women, had been betrayed by the corrupt government of President Musoveni. Not only had no laws been passed to guarantee women’s legal rights in the crucial areas of family, property and inheritance, but spending on health and education had been subordinated to corruption and the military.
Margot James spoke at the FDC International Women’s Day rally. She said “research from countries across the developing world has proved time and time again that development is accelerated by investing in the education and life chances of girls and women, money invested in education, especially that of girls, and in securing the legal rights for women that enable them to be economically independent, will have a trickle down effect on the rest of the local economy”.
Margot also added “there is no substitute for getting more women in to public life in Uganda, there needs to be a critical mass, one or two trailblazers are essential but until there are enough women at the centre of government, where decisions about resource allocation are made, Uganda will be held back and your people unable to reach their full potential”.
The work of the FDC Women’s League in preparing and training more women for a career in public life, should help to solve the problem of women’s under representation over time. This work has been financed by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and delivered free of charge by the Conservative Party who are supporting the advancement of women in a number of developing countries.
