Veep Opoku-Agyemang Launches PRIMER for Maternal Care
Veep Opoku-Agyemang Launches PRIMER to Improve Emergency Care for Pregnant Women
Ghana has taken a new step in tackling one of its most persistent health challenges preventable maternal deaths. Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang has launched a five-year Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health Emergency Response (PRIMER), on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama, aimed at strengthening emergency care for pregnant women nationwide.
The event took place in Accra on Monday, with the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, and Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Ayensu Danquah, among the officials present.
What stood out about the launch was just how many different sectors it pulled together government institutions, development partners, health professionals, traditional and religious leaders, civil society organisations, and everyday communities, all in the room to address the social, economic, and health-system factors driving maternal mortality.
Dr Lartey used her remarks to speak directly to the ministry’s role in this effort, emphasising that women shouldn’t be kept from healthcare simply because they lack information, money, permission, or the confidence to make decisions about their own bodies.
She committed the ministry to continuing work on gender-responsive interventions — things like improving women’s access to information, supporting their economic empowerment, and strengthening their voice in household and community decisions.
Dr Lartey didn’t shy away from naming a particularly vulnerable group: adolescent girls, especially those facing poverty, child marriage, school dropout, or limited access to sexual and reproductive health information.
For her, protecting girls from child marriage, violence, and exploitation is inseparable from improving maternal health outcomes long-term. She pledged that the ministry would work alongside relevant institutions to help keep girls in school, support their empowerment, and address the social and economic pressures that raise their risk of early pregnancy.
Beyond social factors, Dr Lartey also pointed to something painfully practical the everyday costs many families struggle with. Transportation, food, medicine, childcare, and other household expenses can all delay a woman from seeking care when she needs it most.
That’s where she sees social protection programmes playing a meaningful role, helping ease the economic pressures that push vulnerable households toward delaying or avoiding essential healthcare.
She committed her ministry to working closely with the Ministry of Health, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), UNFPA, local assemblies, traditional and religious authorities, civil society, and development partners ensuring the gender, economic, and social dimensions of maternal mortality are fully woven into the national response, alongside stronger community awareness around antenatal care and recognising pregnancy danger signs early.
Vice President Opoku-Agyemang offered a fuller picture of Ghana’s progress and its remaining gaps. On the positive side, roughly nine out of every ten women now receive at least four antenatal care visits, and a similar proportion deliver in health facilities rather than at home. Skilled health personnel now attend about 86 percent of births clear evidence that more women are entering the formal healthcare system than before.
But she was equally direct about where things still fall short. Ghana’s maternal mortality ratio remains unacceptably high, still above the Sustainable Development Goal target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
Her call was for sharper focus on the quality and readiness of services emergency response times, transportation, communication, and coordination between the facilities referring patients and the ones receiving them.
Opoku-Agyemang pointed out that Ghana already has dedicated midwives, nurses, doctors, health managers, and community health workers, and that many of the interventions known to save mothers’ lives are already well understood they just need consistent application.
She referenced an example President Mahama has previously cited from his first term, where a targeted intervention reportedly brought maternal deaths to zero in Dodowa, using it as proof that strong leadership and disciplined teamwork can genuinely change outcomes.
She stressed that the leading causes of maternal death are largely preventable or treatable, which makes deaths caused by delays, missing supplies, or slow emergency response especially tragic.
According to the Vice President, PRIMER exists specifically to tackle problems that no single health institution can solve alone issues around financing, infrastructure, staffing, procurement, data systems, and community mobilisation.
The plan is to identify what’s already working well in high-performing locations and figure out how to replicate that success elsewhere. PRIMER itself isn’t a brand-new idea pulled from nowhere it was first presented in February 2026 to the SDGs Implementation Coordination Committee at the NDPC, and has since evolved into this full five-year initiative.
Opoku-Agyemang laid out PRIMER’s structure around three broad pillars.
The first centres on political leadership and social mobilisation improving coordination between ministries, local governments, traditional and religious leaders, civil society, the private sector, and communities.
The second is about institutionalised accountability and evidence-based action, which means strengthening how maternal and perinatal deaths are tracked and responded to, improving data quality and timeliness, clarifying who’s responsible for what, and holding regular high-level reviews of progress.
The third pillar focuses on sustainable domestic financing, while still welcoming responsible external support where it genuinely strengthens the system.
Practically, the initiative will touch areas like maternity and newborn care, referral and transport systems, access to blood, medicines and essential equipment, community engagement, and using data more effectively to guide decisions.
Opoku-Agyemang was careful to frame PRIMER’s role correctly it isn’t meant to operate as a separate, isolated programme, nor duplicate what government is already doing. Instead, it’s designed to work within existing institutional structures while closing persistent gaps.
She also acknowledged something important: maternal survival doesn’t depend on healthcare alone. Roads, communication systems, transportation, water, and energy all play a part too, which is why she called for collaboration with the institutions responsible for those areas as well.
She thanked development partners for their continued support, while emphasising that such support should strengthen Ghana’s own systems rather than create dependency helping the country identify interventions that can be sustained and scaled on its own terms long-term.
Beyond policy, Opoku-Agyemang had a direct appeal to families encourage women to seek care early, learn to recognise danger signs, and make sure women feel supported rather than delayed when they need help. She extended that responsibility to traditional and religious leaders, civil society, and the media too, all of whom she said have a role in reinforcing these messages within communities.
It is not enough for many more women to enter our health facilities, she said, making clear that the real measure of success is whether mothers and their babies make it home safely afterward.
She also took a moment to recognise the health professionals working in maternal and newborn care, who make difficult, high-pressure decisions daily to protect mothers and babies during emergencies.
Deputy Minister for Health Dr Grace Ayensu Danquah shared sobering context for why PRIMER matters now. She disclosed that 134 women have died while attempting to give birth, with many of these cases involving referrals between facilities.
A significant share of these deaths occurred in the Ashanti Region, reinforcing just how critical it is to strengthen referral systems, emergency preparedness, and the readiness of facilities receiving patients in crisis.
For Ayensu Danquah, these statistics underline exactly why PRIMER is needed — to ensure women developing complications during pregnancy or childbirth are transported quickly and receive the right care once they arrive at a health facility.
The launch drew together representatives from the NDPC, UNFPA, development partners, civil society organisations, traditional and religious leaders, and the media, all united around one central aim: ensuring that preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth stop costing mothers their lives.
