RI needs to work harder to save mothers, children

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite a promising decrease in the maternal and infant mortality rates in the country, the targets set for Indonesia by a United Nations program are still far away, the experts say.

The latest data shows Indonesia's maternal mortality rate at 307 per 100,000 births and the infant death rate at 35 per 1,000 births, as compared with 334 and 46 respectively in 1997.

The Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) noted the accomplishment but stressed that Indonesia's rates, while improving, still kept it at the bottom of the list of Southeast Asian countries.

The UN-sponsored Millenium Development Goals program has set targets of 125 and 23 for maternal and infant mortality rates for Indonesia by 2015.

"It will indeed be quite difficult to meet the deadline without applying significant efforts. We need to immediately work to resolve the direct and indirect causes of such regrettable statistics," the ministry's director general for communal health Azrul Azwar said during a WHO-hosted discussion recently.

The discussion was held to commemorate this year's World Health Day, which fell on Thursday, with the subtitle: "Has Enough Attention Been Given to Save the Lives of Mothers and Children?"

While direct causes of mortality included hemorrhaging, eclampsia and complications from abortions, the indirect causes were more fundamental -- poverty, the poor status of health facilities in terms of quality and quantity and the lack of transportation.

Azrul said improving the welfare of the poor was one essential measure to ensure they had better access to health facilities.

"It generally boils down to the economic conditions of the people that affects their capacity and capability to access health service, such as doctors and professional midwives. Therefore, the need to provide health service as accessible as possible is a priority. But the health ministry receives a far lower amount of the budget than other ministries," he said.

The tight budget, Azrul said, meant there were few midwives in many areas nationwide, leading to unassisted and dangerous births in many cases.

Since 2001, the ministry had been running a series of programs to make pregnancies safer.

The three key elements were to provide trained personnel to assist all births, provide adequate services for all obstetric and neonatal complications, and provide information on pregnancy prevention and miscarriage complications for women, he said.

Azrul said the budget had constrained the ministry's work. He called for the public to use the available facilities.

"All pregnant women are advised to monitor their pregnancies, and after birth to ensure the babies get everything their bodies need."

"Husbands are also advised to be considerate during pregnancy, while on the government's part, we will try to prioritize and to pay more attention toward these issues," he said.