ISLAMABAD, June 1: Greater emphasis should be laid on the improvement of the mother’s health to facilitate childbirth and reduce maternity mortality rate.

This was said by Begum Sehba Musharraf at a function held in connection with the International Day of the Midwife here at a local hotel on Saturday. The function was organized by the National Committee for Maternal Health (NCMH) in collaboration with the UNFPA.

Health Minister Dr Abdul Malik Kasi, Health Secretary Ejaz Rahim, Minister of State for Human Development Dr Nasim Ashraf, NCMH president Dr Sadiqua Jaferey, UNFPA representative Olivier Brasseur and midwife Imtiaz Taj Kamal also delivered their presentations.

Begum Musharraf said it required a proper selection, training and monitoring system to achieve this task. Any system, so developed, will be a giant leap in the battle against high maternal and infant mortality rates, she added.

“Despite over 50 years of our existence, we still need to give greater attention to improve maternal health, to facilitate childbirth and to ensure that mother and child orientation becomes a key feature of our national health and human development strategies,” she said.

It was quite clear that properly educated, skilled and licensed midwives played a major role in saving mothers’ lives.

“It is neither possible nor necessary for every birth to be handled by a doctor. Therefore, childbirth must be made a pleasant and safe event by skilled attendance at the time of a delivery,” she added.

A central plank in our health strategy should be to create greater awareness in the communities by educating the masses about five major killers, about the crucial value of competent and capable health care providers at the time of childbirth and about the importance of speed of decision-making by the household stakeholders. “Health education holds the key,” she added.

Begum Musharraf was happy to note that the government had initiated a significant movement for change through a national programme for family planning and primary health care. This programme aimed at providing primary health care services, including maternal and child health services, at the doorstep of the community through lady health workers (LHWs), she added.

She said the government was committed to increasing the number of LHWs to 100,000 by the year 2005, and appreciated that selected LHWs would be trained in midwifery to ensure that skilled birth attendant was available in the rural community all the time.

She also mentioned the launching of women health project in 20 districts that aimed at developing a women-friendly district health system.