Campaign to reduce mortality rates launched
JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) launched on Thursday a campaign called "Make Pregnancy Safer" to reduce the country's high maternal and infant mortality rates.
"As a developing country, it is a fact that our infant mortality rate is still very high, an average of 300 deaths per 100,000 live births," Minister of Health and Social Welfare Achmad Sujudi said on the sidelines of a visit to a community health center in the Tebet Timur district in South Jakarta.
"With this program, we hope to reduce the infant mortality rate to about 100 deaths per 100,000 live births within the next five years," Achmad said.
Achmad was accompanied on the visit by WHO director general Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was in Indonesia to introduce a new commitment to the ongoing world scheme on the Safe Motherhood Initiative.
"With this 'Make Pregnancy Safer' program, we're promoting three main points: that every pregnancy must be wanted (by the mother), that every birth process must be handled by a trained medical practitioner and that every complication should get immediate treatment," the minister said.
In Indonesia, there is an average of five million pregnancies per year with around 18,000 to 20,000 deaths due to complications during pregnancy and labor.
"Four out of 10 babies' deaths take place during the first week of life. This is very concerning," Achmad said.
The program to increase people's awareness on the issue will start at the community level, involving local community health centers (Puskesmas) and integrated health service posts (Posyandu), he said.
"But our main problem is the budget. We have a very limited fund for some 240,000 Posyandu nationwide. We can only give Rp 1.1 million to every Posyandu per year.
"Due to the very limited funding, many Posyandu are no longer functional," Achmad said.
Head of the Jakarta office of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare Deddy Ruswendi said about 20 percent of the city's 4,000 Posyandu had been forced to stop operating during the economic crisis.
"Ideally, some 100 to 200 babies are handled by one Posyandu. So, in Jakarta, we should have 10,000 Posyandu," Deddy said.
Posyandu are convenient for children and mothers, a key factor essential for improving the quality of their health, he said.
"Posyandu can function as health training centers and provide services for mothers and their children. That's why we strive to gain more funds to finance them," Deddy said.
The latest WHO data shows that every year about 500,000 women die due to complications during pregnancy and labor worldwide. Most of the deaths occur in developing countries.
The data also shows that some 3.8 million babies die during labor every year, while about three million babies die during the first week of life.
The ministry, through health posts in subdistricts, also gave training on reproductive safety, sanitary and health aspects to midwives and other traditional medical practitioners. (edt)