Why government should pay for all child births

In the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2022 report, the number of mothers who died during pregnancy, delivery, or 42 days after delivery stood at 189 deaths per 100,000 live births. This means around 2,800 mothers died out of an estimated one-and-half million births. You bet these are only the recorded cases.

There are many causes for this among them is the lack of proper medical attention and care before, during and after child birth. The best address would definitely be delivery in well equipped and staffed medical facilities at an affordable cost.  In fact it should be free of charge to encourage as many mothers to go into the healthcare system with confidence.
Uganda follows the liberal economics of public-private partnerships and cost sharing adopted in the late 80s. It was supposed to deliver efficiency in social services like health and education. Unfortunately, it presents very serious challenges for developing nations.
One needs to look at the situation in countries where some of these often ridiculous and irresponsible ideas originate.

It started with arguments about high population growth rates being too high and too bad for the limited resources in the world. Mark you, these are countries that have spent the last 50 years spending trillions of dollars producing nuclear weapons which have never been deployed. They are simply deterrents to balance threats of violence. The US and the West against Russia and now China and countries like Iran and North Korea. So much more has gone into destructive wars prompted by national pride and jingoism. 
But in their wisdom the vital panacea is reduction in the world’s population so that there are fewer people to utilise the resources that the world has to offer. 

But if you look at the main promoters of the idea against population growth, Bill Gates and the like, they are mainly the world’s richest individuals in the West. These are the 1 percent of the world’s population that according to Oxfam, own nearly twice as much of the world’s wealth.
Their covert fear is obvious. High populations mean that governments would need more revenue to weave the social safety net for their care. The government would then have to turn to the money bags; the huge corporations and tax them. That was the case with Obama care that helped poor people to access subsidized healthcare. It was opposed by big corporations for putting the burden on their shoulders.

The subtle way of reducing population growth without annoying the liberals and the conservatives alike with the issue of family planning, was to make life expensive. Ironically, they sold the idea that profit making would make healthcare providers more efficient and thus provide better services. They falsely painted a picture of the capitalist being the legendary mother goose that fends for its young ones and not just for itself. They were silent about the earnings and abilities of the consumers, some of whom are too poor to afford like the detained mothers of Uganda with hospital bills around their necks.

In Europe and the West in general, life has become so expensive that it is smarter not to risk the burden of having children.
Now they have a fresh challenge. Most of the populations are aging. You have fewer people at the bottom of the pyramid producing for the many people at the top, who can no longer work.  
Many countries like Canada, USA, Britain, Germany, Australia etc are running around to boost their populations. They have ‘friendly’ policies that provide citizenship and employment to skilled labor from all over the world especially in the fields of healthcare to look after the sickly senior citizens.

This has caused many issues as the locals are against ‘foreigners,’ taking their jobs and now far right parties are gaining ground. That now is the dilemma that developing countries like Uganda need to have in mind as they pursue these policies.
Uganda can learn and even take advantage of this situation. The state should pay for childbirth and all the related issues from better training and pay for midwives and doctors to equipping and bringing health facilities closer to the population.

There is also a logical issue here. One is prosecuted if they mistreat or kill their own child whose birth and upkeep they pay for. It makes sense for the state which ‘owns’ the individual once they are born, to pay for their entry into the world. It should not simply turn up as an opportunist after the hard, expensive part of child birth.
You understand it better when you note that all government plans and projections for the future depend on the population, not as a mere abstract but flesh and blood. 

Permutations for future production, revenue, demand, supply, employment, infrastructure, defence of the state, electoral democratisation etc., are all based on people. They must be a solid financial input not mere lip service in the form of policy, in ensuring that they get the numbers. It is ironical that many who defend policies that impact negatively on child birth, use the argument of China and India’s high population as a boon for economic growth. 

The least the state can do is to ensure that children are conveniently delivered into the world without leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of their mothers. 
Otherwise it jeopardizes many things like vaccination. If the state shies away from child birth it is viewed with suspicion and skepticism when it comes up with important free programmes like vaccination for the well being of the child. That is where the cynics have a field day in tarnishing vaccination and endangering the lives of children and the future generation. 

All said, help the mothers to have safe deliveries at the cost of the State. We may then train the population and export labour to fill in the gaps opened up by the deficit in the low population growth in the global north. It would ease the unemployment pressure that our young population exerts on the country. Then most importantly it would earn the country remittances that stand at over $1.2 Billion dollars.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues
Twitter: @nsengoba