Dili, October 22, 2024 (Média Democracia) – The United Nations Population Fund International in Timor-Leste (UNFPA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health facilitated training for health workers from 12 municipalities including RAEOA on Maternal and Infant Mortality Awareness and Response, the activity was held for six days at the Novo Turismo hall.
UNFPA Representative in Timor-Leste, Bruce Campbell said that today UNFPA and the Ministry of Health discussed the realities that make people suffer about the tragedy of maternal and infant deaths and how to prevent it.
“Today we are here to talk about the reality that people are suffering from, the tragedy of preventable maternal and infant deaths because it is so important to recognise that the majority of deaths are preventable, every life lost is not just a statistic but a mother, a partner and a very important part of our community.” Bruce Campbell said.
He said, together we must gather our passion to change this narrative and ensure every mother gets the right care and support.
“Our time together this week will allow us to explore how we can shift our collective consciousness to actionable steps that will reduce the number of maternal and infant deaths in Timor-Leste,” He said.
He emphasized that today is a very happy moment for UNFPA which participated in the opening of the capacity building and actualization of facilitator training on Awareness and Management of Maternal and Infant Mortality (MPDSR).
“The MPDSR program in Timor-Leste is a collective effort and partnership with the Ministry of Health to strengthen the health system in the country,” He informed.
Since the beginning 10 years ago in 2014, the establishment of the Maternal Alert and Response System (MDSR) with this collaboration can spread to all districts/cities, because of the support from the Ministry of Health, UNFPA, WHO (and recently UNICEF, because we integrated the very important perinatal in this MPDSR system)
“Eliminating preventable maternal deaths is not just an aspiration, it is the outcome of UNFPA’s three transformative agendas, along with other sustainable development agendas including reducing unmet need for family planning and eliminating Gender Based Violence,” He added.
He emphasized that the Alert and Response system for Maternal and Infant Mortality Rates is strong because this is the key to reducing maternal mortality rates.
“This allows us to disseminate critical information for action to foster routine identification, notification of opportunities and clear revisions for maternal deaths to prevent future tragedies. I thank all of you involved in the MPDSR commission, both at the hospital and municipal levels.” He stressed.
He added that the hard work and data that had been collected had enormous value, UNFPA hoped that this training would empower them to further strengthen their duties, especially in identifying concrete steps and further actions for each maternal and infant mortality rate that had been identified.
As the Head of the Department of Maternal and Infant Health of the Ministry of Health, Lúcia Marta Lay said, previously the death rate was indeed very high as it is currently in the Southeast Asia Region, Timor Leste ranks third for maternal and infant mortality rates.
“Talking about death rate, previously we had a very high death rate as you can see in the Southeast Asia region, Timor-Leste is now in the third position for death rate, that means we have a very high death rate,” She said.
She said, with the previous figure of 500, the death toll could drop to 218 it is for maternal mortality rate and infants were 19, so the target in 2030 must drop to 12.
“Previously, the death rate was more than 500, we were able to reduce it to 218, this is just the maternal mortality rate, the infant mortality rate was previously 19 but we were able to reduce it, and our target in 2030 must be to reduce it to 12 for the infant mortality rate,” She added.
She informed that the standards of the World Health Organization and now the Ministry of Health are being attempted to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates by 2030.
“The mechanism that I mentioned earlier is that we need to increase the capacity of our health workers, so that they have good skills to provide good services to our community, how they can identify complications early so that they can avoid death itself.” She said.
Therefore, this training was held for six days starting from Monday to Friday this week at Novo Turismo.
Reported by : Estefania
Photo : Estefania