Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Prof. Rosemary Ogu, has described every maternal death as a human catastrophe, stressing that preventing women from dying during pregnancy and childbirth requires collective action by government, healthcare providers, communities, universities and families.
Ogu, a Professor of Reproductive Health and the university’s 216th inaugural lecturer, made the call while delivering the institution’s inaugural lecture titled, ‘Sweet Mother: From Peril to Power’, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
She lamented that the death of a woman during pregnancy or within six weeks after childbirth goes beyond a medical failure, saying it leaves children motherless, destabilises families and weakens national development.
According to her, “Every maternal death is not merely a medical failure, but a human catastrophe; a life extinguished in the act of giving life, a child left motherless, a family destabilised and a nation quietly impoverished.”
