Tuesday 27 October 2009

Call to act on maternal mortality

The BBC article, “Call to act on maternal mortality”, reminds me to think about the mortality rates of pregnancy in Thailand and how Thailand encounters with this problem.

The article is about the counsel of the government around the word at the UN Population Fund Meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They realized that the mortality rates of the pregnant woman are increase because they lack of midwives. Like many countries, Ethiopia has the problem that many midwives graduated prefer to work abroad, “the brain drain” (2009, ¶ 8). The government encounters this problem by giving the scholarship to the best students who have less opportunity in education to study midwives with condition that they must work in their own area. However, the problem is they do not have enough money due to the demand of the midwives and the increasing money for solving the HIV/Aids problems.

In my opinion, I think that the causes of maternal mortality are the poor policies of the health care system. The good policy will provide enough money to develop efficient equipment and medicine, good quality staff, and knowledge media that everyone can access. If the hospital have enough efficient equipment and medicine, staffs that have high education, and people who have knowledge to protect themselves, mortality rate will decrease, not only maternal mortality. In the problem about the brain drain, the major cause should consider them the low salary and the workload. This problem can solve if the government have more money to produce enough staffs that can reduce the workload and give the suitable salary. Not only the brain drain but also the quality of works to taking care the patients because they are not exhausted from working. However, these problems are very complex especially in the developing countries and need the cooperation of everybody.

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References
Call to act on maternal mortality. (2009, October 26). BBC News. Retrieved October 27, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8327144.stm

3 comments:

  1. I strongly agree with you. Healthcare system is a basic need that everyone should access; therefore, the government should allocate more money to improve all aspects of healthcare system in order to solve the problem about maternal mortality especially in the quality of human resourse. Moreover, family plan is also the good way to solve this problem.

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  2. I agree with you that a bad policy of health has effected to maternal motality especially developing country. Moreover you advice government to promote more salary to staffs.
    But, if goverment increased income of health care providers, the pregnant mother would pay high expense to visit hospital, as a result these mother could not pay and budget of country may not sufficient to support. Are you sure maternal motality could be low.

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  3. I sort of agree with Aor. If the problem is that "they do not have enough money due to the demand of the midwives and the increasing money for solving the HIV/Aids problems" (Keng's post, ¶ 2), then how can they implement the good policies that all cost more money?
    I think what is needed are policies that do not cost money. Perhaps basic education about cleanliness and childbirth, and a lot of local women who are not medical professionals but who have basic knowledge about childbirth and childcare. Or something like community self-help groups run by women for women.
    Just a couple of ideas. I agree with Keng that solutions are often hard to find, especially when money is in very short supply.

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