Decreasing maternal mortality and increasing the survival of children under the age of five in the hinterland has been targeted in a CAD$2.5 million project funded by the Government of Canada, that will seek to bring equity in the level of services offered in the public system.
On Tuesday, the ‘Maternal, Newborn and Child Health’ project was launched in Guyana, funded under the Global Affairs Canada and executed by McMaster University and Giving Health to Kids. It will be implemented over five years.
The project is aimed at complementing the Government of Guyana’s efforts to increase the quality and availability of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) care in the hinterland: Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine.
Associate Clinical Professor at Mc Master University, Dr Narendra Singh underlined that there is a gross discrepancy between the level of service offered to mothers in the hinterland versus those on the coast.
“If a mother delivers a baby in less than today, does that mother have the same chance of survival? Does that mother that baby have the same chance of survival as if that mother delivered that baby a GPHC? And the answer is no. That’s why we’re here today because of that gross discrepancy between the rural and the urban areas,” he reasoned.
He noted that 75 to 80 percent of the Under Five Mortality were babies dying before 28 days. Engagement with President Irfaan Ali would have led to procurement of equipment which will soon arrive. However, this grant will be used to develop programmes to enhance neonatal care.
“With the President’s vision of building this new maternal child facility, we need to train as many sub specialists as possible not only physician but also nurses.”
Neonatologist and Board Member of Giving Health to Kids, Dr Leif Nelin underscored that Child Mortality rate is 28 per 1000 live births and the neonatal mortality rate, which is part of the child mortality rate, is 17 per 1000 live births.
“Neonatal mortality, which is the death that occurs in the baby before they reach age 28 days, is the majority of deaths that cause the Child Mortality Rate to be 28 per 1000, so we will need to work on neonatal mortality in this project…. The problem is the same as for many countries, and that is that there’s a discrepancy a disparity between urban health and rural health. There’s less people in rural areas, there’s less access to health care. There’s less infrastructure available health care.”
The idea is to train health workers to provide high quality care as they would at GPHC and provide the necessary equipment for antenatal testing with resources for post-partum care.
The intermediate outcome is to have increased access to and utilization of health services that respond to the needs of poor women, pregnant women, mothers and infants in the regions outlined. An indicator is also having 78 percent of pregnant women having their first checkup up within 12 weeks by 2028; and also having 50 percent of deliveries conducted by a skilled birth personnel during this period.
