HYDERABAD: A mother and childcare week will be observed from Nov 23 to 28 and around 19,149, 645 persons out of the total Sindh population will be covered during the week throughout the province.

This was stated by National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Healthcare’s Sindh coordinator Jay Ram Das on Saturday at a press conference held at the local press club. Programme’s Deputy Coordi-nator Dr Abdul Hakeem Dhamra, Progra-mme Moni-toring Coordinator Dr Pir Ghulam Hussain and others were present on the occasion.

The National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, also known as the Lady Health Workers Programme (LHWP), was launched in 1994.

The coordinator said this week was marked twice a year while the same (this week) had been observed in June this year.

He said the Sindh health ministry’s LHWP was in coordination with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

Quoting a survey conducted in Pakistan, he said that after deliveries, around 276 out of total 100,000 mothers died in Pakistan. While 54 children out of total 1,000 died in their first week of birth, he said, adding that 78 children died in the first year and another 94 fell prey to death in five years.

He said that mostly deaths of both mothers and children took place because of unawareness, lack of facilities, malnutrition, delivery complications and pneumonia and other diseases.

He said that on the special directives of Sindh Health Minister Dr Jam Mehtab Dahar, this week would be marked from Nov 23 to 28 with a view to controlling mortality rates. Activities of the entire campaign would be examined from the provincial level to the level of each union council through a monitoring plan, he said.

He said 22,000 lady health workers (LHWs) and 755 lady health supervisors (LHS) would actively participate in this drive.The coordinator said that during the week, 223,413 pregnant women would be given medicines of abdominal diseases, 229,796 children under the age of five years would be administered polio drops and 168,416 children under the age of two years would be vaccinated. He also said medicines of abdominal diseases would be provided to 1,723,468 children from two to five years old.

Around 22,341 pregnant women would be vaccinated against tetanus while LHWs and LHS would disseminate a message of healthcare to around 1,865,352 persons through health education sessions (HES) which would be held at houses of a locality within the jurisdiction of each LHW.

Earlier, Sindh health department officers and low-grade employees led by Dr Jay Ram Das held an awareness rally outside the local press club.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2015