Support for maternal health

Daily Graphic, Pg. 20. Thursday, March 5/09

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

GHANA is to benefit from a $30 million United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) donor support to help boost maternal health in the country.
The amount, which will be in tranches of $5 million for the next six years, will go into improving midwifery services in the country.
Dr Vincent Fauveau of the UNFPA, who made this known to the Daily Graphic in Accra after a forum on a joint programme by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and the UNFPA on, “Investing in midwives”, said the UNFPA aimed at assisting 60 countries which had high maternal and neo-natal deaths in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
According to him, it was the UNFPA’s ambition to solicit donor support from international, governmental and non-governmental organisations to mobilise $500m to tackle maternal and neo-natal health care in 60 countries globally by 2015, which marks the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world's main development challenges and are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 Heads of State and governments during the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The MDGs four and five specifically target child and maternal health and, according to Dr Fauveau, when the issue of maternal and neo-natal health was solved, it would have an effect on most of the MDG targets.
The UNFPA Deputy Country Representative, Mr Jude Edoche, in an address, also said the UNFPA was aimed at finding ways to improve quality of midwifery services, adding that countries with high maternal mortality rates needed to “enact relevant regulations to create the enabling environment for the practice of midwifery and develop strong and credible professional associations of midwives and educational institutions for the training of midwives”.
He said such countries were also to provide the necessary tools and supplies, ensure supportive supervision of both public and private midwives and raise the profile of midwives.
The President of the ICM, Ms Bridget Lynch, in an address, said the collaboration with UNFPA was aimed at strengthening midwifery, saying that the essential elements of a strong profession were improving on education and regulation and being part of a professional association.
She said the association aimed at developing a global standard for midwifery regulations and education, update global midwifery competencies and become a global tool for strengthening midwifery associations across the globe.
The ICM Secretary General, who gave an overview of ICM, said it was aimed at strengthening midwifery education and ongoing educational programmes and the role of the midwife as an educator.
She said the association also aimed to strengthen and support midwives’ professional autonomy to ensure that midwifery education, regulation and practice were designed and governed specifically by midwives, as well as promote and support midwifery research that enhanced and documented evidence–based midwifery practices.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory, said the country needed international partnerships in developing a higher educational system for midwifery at the bachelors and masters degree levels to provide the required competent tutors and researchers to teach in the country’s midwifery institutions as part of accreditation requirements and to also improve the image of midwifery.
He said the GHS viewed the poor maternal health statistics seriously, saying that despite the concerted efforts in improving maternal and child health services, “we continue to have skilled birth attendance of below 50 per cent”, adding that to help address the situation, the sector had chosen the theme, “Change for better results: Improving maternal and neonatal health”, for its programme of work this year.
Countries which are so far participating in the ICM/UNFPA programme include Ghana, Madagascar, Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, The Sudan, Haiti, Cambodia and Guyana.