Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 03, 2016 News
—sends doctor to Japan for strategic training
Increasing health-seeking attitudes among people towards reproductive health and safe motherhood can
play a major role in improving maternal health. However, improving the services offered remains a very crucial factor as well. In recognition of this, the Ministry of Public Health is seeking to embrace strategic measures that will essentially serve to improve maternal health services.
According to information disseminated by the Ministry yesterday, as a part of the continuous efforts to improve Maternal Health in Guyana, the Ministry of Public Health’s focal person for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV, Dr. Oneka Scott, will be attending a Maternal Health Training Programme in Japan. The programme which commences today will culminate on July 10, 2016.
Dr. Scott, who joined the Ministry of Public Health as the focal person for Adolescent Health and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in September 2015, has been a physician for some seven years.
The main objective of the programme, which is being conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), is to improve Maternal Health and by extension, reduce Maternal Mortality.
The Government, through the Ministry of Public Health, has a mandate to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality, and this is intended to help improve family health as a whole. “It is for this reason that we are working closely with JICA to train personnel in the area of Maternal Health,” a statement issued by the Ministry outlined.
The one-month training programme which Dr Scott will attend in Japan is offered to countries aiming to strengthen their strategies to reinforce “continuum of care” at the community level, so as to contribute to the improvement of Maternal Health.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the policies and administration of health in Japan, the nursing education system and the roles of various health stakeholders, including maternity centres, health centres, hospitals, and universities.
Through the lectures and field visits, participants will gain ideas and garner solutions for solving community health issues in their countries, and make an educational plan for nurses, midwives and health workers.
Insight will also be gained into addressing bottlenecks of health systems for maternal and child survival by delivering a more effective package of preventive and clinical interventions for maternal and child health at both community and facility levels.
Creating linkages between communities and facilities through the introduction of innovative strategies and scaling-up high impact child health interventions, will also be explored during the training.
Rapid progress in some countries demonstrates that when Governments take strategic approaches to safe motherhood, changes can be made to Maternal Health.
These approaches can ensure the “continuum of care” during the period from pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, to postpartum by deploying skilled birth attendants, ensuring adequate essential supplies, making family-planning accessible and providing timely obstetric care.
In the year 2000, a total of 189 world leaders met at the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit and accepted the Millennium Declaration. It was there they agreed to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were intended to overcome poverty and other related targets. One of those goals was to improve maternal health and reduce it by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015.
So far, the maternal mortality ratio has decreased from 270 per cent in 1990 to 86 per cent in 2012. To achieve the target Guyana was supposed to reduce its maternal mortality rate to 67.5 percent by the end of 2015.
Public Health Minister, Dr. George Norton, stated that while he is saddened that Guyana was unable to meet the millennium goal, the Ministry will still continue to tackle the issue and bring it down to the lowest in the Caribbean.
“We made a commitment on our campaign trail to have maternity mortality rates reduced and we uphold that,” he said, adding that the majority of maternal death cases were pointing directly to the negligence of health care professionals.
“We have recognized that we have a real problem on our hands and we have decided to tackle it by taking a multi-sectoral approach,” he said. He added too that the Ministry has plans to improve the physical conditions of maternity facilities, especially at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
He stated that he was not satisfied with the response of the health care practitioners, highlighting that it was brought to his attention that some doctors were “more concerned about changing over shift than tending to mothers.”
“I want the doctors to be more involved. They are negligent and I will not hide that fact. I’m hearing talks that I’m micro-managing everything, but if that’s what it will take to stop mothers from dying, and dropping the maternal mortality rate, so be it,” he firmly asserted.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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