National News

ISLAMABAD, (APP): Federal Ministry of Health Services
has urged for more national and provincial funding for maternal and
child healthcare programmes to reduce high mortality rates in the
country.
Under a National Action Plan 2016-2025 prepared by the
ministry, public investments in health and other social determinants
should increase substantially over the next few years.
Pakistan’s current health spending is a mere 0.6 percent of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and primary care services in rural
areas of Pakistan are critically dependent upon the Ladies Health
Workers Programme and community midwives.
The action plan seeks to executive strategies to significantly
improve the capacity of lady health workers and midwives.
Effective coverage has now become a serious issue given that
there are managerial inefficiencies and between 30-50 percent of the
population in several rural districts, especially the poorest and
most remote areas, are without ladies health workers coverage.
Pakistan’s maternal mortality ratio, which indicates risk of
death per pregnancy, has declined from 521 per 100,000 live births
in 1990 to 332 in 2012, but still far behind the proposed target of
130 set for 2015.
An estimated 8000 Pakistani women die every year of pregnancy-
related causes.
There are also wide variations between provinces, maternal
mortality rate being lowest in Punjab at 227 and highest in
Balochistan with 785 deaths per 100,000 live births.
One of the main reason of this high maternal mortality rate is
very low utilization of family planning services.
According to Pakistan Demographic Health Survey 2012-13, eight
percent of adolescent women age 15-19 are already mothers or
pregnant with their first child and 35 percent of women age 25-49
were married by age 18.
Early pregnancy causes increase in morbidity and mortality in
this age bracket.
The most common reason of early pregnancy is early, forced and
child marriages in Pakistan and it has a correlation with poverty,
illiteracy and lack of understanding on sexual and reproductive
health matters.
While, Pakistan currently ranks 26th in the world for under-5
child mortality rates.
Although Pakistan has reduced its under-five child mortality
from 141 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 89 in 2012, this is much
higher than the UN millennium development goals of reducing it to 46
by 2015.
Newborn deaths are still a major contributor to under give
mortality with around half of under-five deaths occurring in the
first month of life.
Under-five mortality in children born to mothers with no
education (112/1000 live births) is two times higher than that of
children born to mothers with secondary education (57/1000 live
births) and more than three times higher than that of mothers with
more than a secondary education (36/1000 live births).
State Minister for Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar has
stated that her ministry’s National Action Plan will create a
mechanism for national consensus on reproductive health and
nutrition needs of mother and children.
The ministry has suggested innovative ways of generating
finances for health programmes including imposition of health tax on
luxury items, sin tax on tobacco and nutrition levies on soft
drinks.
The ministry has also proposed a National Oversight Body for
improving execution of its programmes.