Maternal, child deaths: call to adopt comprehensive strategy to address the problem

Dr Fehmida Mirza, Speaker National Assembly has stressed the need for working out a comprehensive and cohesive strategy to address problem of maternal and child deaths in Asia Region, said a press release received here on Monday.
Women either succumb to pregnancy or are debilitated due to unsafe procedures, lack of healthcare professionals or unavailability of prompt healthcare delivery system, she said while addressing the plenary session on "Mother and Child" during the third regional conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Dr Fehmida said that Asia region comprises one-fifth of world population with over one billion people, which is confronted with unique dilemma of wasted or unmanaged resources, rising poverty and renewed conflicts. She said that unabated growth in population is hampering the region's economic progress. She said that natural resources are at risk because of insufficient conservation, causing environmental degradation and leading to natural calamities.
She said that the vicious cycle has aggravated problems of multiple ethnic, religious and social conflicts in the region. She said that the entire quagmire is badly hampering our respective national progress and in this whole process, women and children have come out as the worst affected, facing the burden of the chaos.
She said that in South Asia region, where literally every third child-death of the world occurs, carries two-third of global burden of malnourished children, and has the most unbalanced sex ratios in the world with more than 50 million "missing women" and one third of all maternal deaths.
NA Speaker stressed the need for building a strong, sustained and well-resourced community-based healthcare system, which does not only ensure safe deliveries through skilled midwives, but which also nurtures "protected childhood". Citing the Sri Lankan achievements in safe motherhood and child healthcare, she said that it has become a proud example for all developing countries.
She said that the situation necessitates South Asia to reset its priorities and adopt a more focused approach to make the future of the region, free from lethal diseases like polio, goitre, HIV-AIDS, unplanned pregnancies, unsafe abortions and malnutrition. She said that these are the battles that we must fight, not only as nations, but also as a regional and global community.
Quoting Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, she said that the late leader dreamt of a Pakistan, an Asia and a world where every pregnancy is planned, and every child conceived is nurtured, loved, educated and supported." She said that in furtherance of the mission, the present democratic leadership of Pakistan has committed renewed efforts through a reorganised maternal, new-born and child health programme. This programme aims at ensuring comprehensive and basic obstetric and new born care at the district level, enrolment, training and deployment of community midwives in rural areas, awareness, advocacy and demand creation and availability of family planning services at all health outlets.
Dr Fehmida Mirza said that Pakistan's Women's Parliamentary Caucus could be a role model for CPA Asia Region in fostering close links among our women parliamentarians to jointly pursue a common agenda of development. She said that such meaningful and targeted co-operation can turn CPA Asia Region into a dynamic and action-oriented forum and only then as fellow parliamentarians, we can transfer the benefits of co-operation to our people.-PR