Mozambique: Pregnant women sleeping on the floor in Nampula city health unit

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Mozambique: Pregnant women sleeping on the floor in Nampula city health unit

2:24 CAT | 06 May 2025

File photo: DW

Joana (not her real name), 18, gave birth on the morning of April 24 on an iron bed without a mattress at the 25 de Setembro Health Centre, one of the main health units in Nampula province, northern Mozambique.

“When we arrived at the hospital, they first told us to lay my capulana on the floor and she stayed there,” Joana’s sister, who attended on the labour, told Lusa. “After I started complaining, they transferred us to a new room, but the bed in that room also had no mattress. So she gave birth lying on an iron bed without a mattress.”
The 25 de Setembro Health Centre is located in the centre of Nampula, a city with currently over 700,000 inhabitants, and, like the city’s central hospital, a reference unit, especially for residents of the outlying neighbourhoods of the provincial capital.

Complaints about the conditions of pregnant women are not new, but in recent weeks they have taken on new dimensions after a family member of one of the patients denounced “mistreatment and inhumane conditions” in a video shared on social media.

“It’s as if we weren’t people,” another woman who recently gave birth at that health unit told Lusa.

The waiting rooms for pregnant women are almost always full, with people on the floor and others on beds without mattresses, and, patients report, only those who bribe the professionals who work at the health unit can get a “minimally decent” bed.

“Do we suffer all this just because we are poor?” asked another woman, who told Lusa she had been forced to pay 400 meticais (almost €6.00) in bribes to receive “minimally decent” treatment.

When questioned by Lusa, the director of the District Health, Women and Social Welfare Services of Nampula, Manuel Eduardo, said he was aware of the problem and assured that support worth 300,000 meticais (€4,000) had already been made available to purchase mattresses.

“This is a concern of ours. We received support of 300,000 meticais and we believe that the situation will be resolved in the next few days,” the official said.

The Mozambican Penal Code provides for punishments for various forms of abuse, including crimes against women in vulnerable situations, but does not specifically cover cases of obstetric violence.

Source: Lusa