Effects of COVID 19 on the delivery of Maternal and Child Health Care Services before and during the pandemic in Lusaka.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore and measure the urgent need to understand how the health systems have responded to effectively, efficiently, and equitable sustain routine service delivery of maternal and child health services during the COVID-2019 pandemic. A retrospective study was conducted to assess the delivery of maternal and child healthcare services at kanyama general hospital before and during the first wave of COVD-19. Data was collected from routinely reported programme data. The quantitative data was used to answer the objectives. For birth attended to by skilled birth attendant after running a paired t-test found that the significance value (p-value) associated with the two-tailed test was 0.008, suggesting that the observed difference in the number of births attended to by skilled personnel before and after COVID is statistically significant. For family planning attendance we found the significance value (p-value) associated with the two-tailed test was 0.000, which we rounded off to 0.001, which is lower than the conventional threshold of 0.05. This indicates a highly significant difference in family planning attendances before and after COVID. For ANC visits before and after we found that, although the significance levels for these visits were slightly higher (p = .025 and p = .039), indicating less robust evidence, they still suggest a notable decline in the number of antenatal care visits during the pandemic. For under five fully vaccinations there was a significant difference observed while vitamin A supplementation there was no significant difference from the results recorded before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this retrospective analysis on the effects of COVID-19 on the provision of maternal, child, and nutrition services showed that there were significant disruptions in a number of areas of maternal and child healthcare.