Government study finds 12 women died giving birth per month in 2010 at hospital in Sierra Leone

A study has shown that during 2010, 12 women died every month while giving birth at the Princess Christian maternity hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, "a country with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates," Agence France-Presse reports. Akim Gibril, chair of an 11-person committee set up by the government to probe challenges at the hospital, said that unless conditions "are urgently addressed, the situation will continue to be the same for 2011." Gibril submitted the report, which recommends "a change in the management structure with a strong executive leadership," to the country's health minister, Hawa Bangura (5/17).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.