The government has launched a five-year Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health Emergency Response (PRIMER) as part of renewed efforts to reduce preventable maternal deaths and improve emergency care for pregnant women across Ghana.
The initiative was launched in Accra on Monday by Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama, with the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, and Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Ayensu Danquah, among officials and stakeholders participating in the event.
The initiative brought together government institutions, development partners, health professionals, traditional and religious leaders, civil society organisations and communities to address the social, economic and health-system factors contributing to maternal mortality.
Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey said the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection was committed to supporting the initiative by addressing the inequalities and vulnerabilities that prevent women and girls from accessing timely healthcare.
She said women should not be prevented from seeking healthcare because they lack information, financial resources, permission or the confidence to make decisions about their own health.
According to her, the ministry would continue to strengthen gender-responsive interventions focused on women’s welfare, access to information, economic empowerment and participation in household and community decision-making.
Dr Lartey also highlighted the vulnerability of adolescent girls, particularly those exposed to poverty, child marriage, school dropout and inadequate access to sexual and reproductive health information and services.
She said protecting girls from child marriage, violence and exploitation was an important component of efforts to improve maternal health outcomes.
The ministry, she said, would work with relevant institutions and partners to keep girls in school, promote their empowerment and address the social and economic vulnerabilities that increase their risk of early pregnancy.
Dr Lartey further pointed to the economic difficulties faced by vulnerable families, noting that the cost of transportation, food, medicines, childcare and other household needs could prevent women from seeking healthcare promptly.
She said social protection programmes therefore had an important complementary role in reducing the economic pressures that prevent vulnerable households from accessing essential services.
She pledged the ministry’s cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, traditional and religious authorities, civil society organisations and development partners.
The collaboration, she said, would ensure that the gender, economic and social dimensions of maternal mortality were fully incorporated into the national response.
She added that the ministry would strengthen community-level awareness and mobilisation on antenatal care, birth preparedness, pregnancy danger signs and the need to seek emergency care without delay
Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang said Ghana had made important gains in maternal healthcare, with about nine out of 10 women receiving at least four antenatal care visits and roughly the same proportion delivering in health facilities.
She said skilled health personnel currently attended about 86 per cent of births, demonstrating that more women were entering the formal healthcare system.
Despite these gains, she said Ghana’s maternal mortality ratio remained unacceptably high and above the Sustainable Development Goal target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
She therefore called for greater attention to the quality and readiness of services, emergency response, transportation, communication and coordination between referring and receiving health facilities.
According to the Vice President, Ghana has dedicated midwives, nurses, doctors, managers and community health workers, while the country already knows many of the interventions capable of saving mothers’ lives.
She cited improvements recorded in some areas as evidence that stronger leadership, disciplined teamwork and quality improvement can produce better outcomes.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang referred to President Mahama’s earlier account of an intervention during his first administration that reportedly brought maternal deaths to zero in Dodowa.
She said the leading causes of maternal deaths were well known and were largely preventable or treatable, making deaths resulting from delays, lack of essential materials, inadequate emergency capacity and slow corrective action particularly tragic.
She explained that PRIMER was designed to address obstacles that could not be resolved by individual health institutions alone, including challenges relating to financing, infrastructure, staffing, procurement, data and community mobilisation.
The Vice President said the initiative would identify interventions that produce better outcomes in high-performing locations and strengthen their application elsewhere.
She disclosed that PRIMER was presented in February 2026 to the SDGs Implementation Coordination Committee at the NDPC, a multisectoral technical working group, and had subsequently developed into the five-year initiative being launched.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang outlined three broad pillars underpinning PRIMER.
The first is political leadership and social mobilisation, aimed at improving coordination among ministries, public institutions, local governments, traditional and religious leaders, civil society, the private sector and communities.
The second is institutionalised accountability and evidence-based action. Under this pillar, the initiative will strengthen maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response, improve the timeliness and quality of data, clarify institutional responsibilities and support regular high-level reviews of results.
The third pillar focuses on sustainable domestic financing while mobilising responsible external support.
The initiative will cover areas including maternity and newborn care, referral and transport systems, access to blood, medicines and essential equipment, community engagement and the use of data to improve decision-making.
The Vice President stressed that the implementation framework must clearly define targets, responsibilities and reporting arrangements, with progress reviewed regularly and lessons from high-performing regions and facilities applied elsewhere.
She cautioned that PRIMER should not operate as a stand-alone programme or duplicate existing government interventions.
Rather, it must work within existing institutional mandates while helping to address persistent gaps.
She noted that factors affecting maternal survival extend beyond the health sector and include roads, communication, transportation, water and energy.
She called for collaboration with institutions responsible for these areas to ensure that existing programmes contribute effectively to the reduction of maternal deaths.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang also acknowledged the contribution of development partners, saying their support should strengthen national systems and help Ghana identify interventions that can be sustained and scaled up.
She urged families and communities to encourage women to seek care early, recognise danger signs and ensure that women are supported rather than delayed.
Traditional and religious leaders, civil society organisations and the media, she added, also had a role in reinforcing these messages.
“It is not enough for many more women to enter our health facilities,” the Vice President said, stressing that the ultimate measure of success was whether mothers and their babies returned home safely.
She also commended health professionals working in maternal and newborn care for making critical decisions under pressure and responding to emergencies to protect mothers and babies.
Deputy Minister for Health, Dr. Grace Ayensu Danquah provided an update on the country’s maternal mortality situation.
She disclosed that 134 women had died while attempting to give birth, with many of the cases involving referrals.
She said a significant proportion of the deaths had occurred in the Ashanti Region, underscoring the need to strengthen referral systems, emergency preparedness and the capacity of receiving health facilities.
The statistics, she said, reinforced the urgency of initiatives such as PRIMER, particularly in ensuring that women who develop complications are transported quickly and receive appropriate care when they reach health facilities.
The launch brought together representatives of the NDPC, UNFPA, development partners, civil society organisations, traditional and religious leaders and the media.
The government says the ultimate goal of PRIMER is to ensure that preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth no longer result in the loss of mothers’ lives.
By Evelyn Tengmaa
