Maternal, child health care in ARMM improve

MARAWI CITY, Lanao del Sur, Aug 21 (PIA) --- The Department of Health in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DOH-ARMM) have gathered government and private health workers engaged in maternal and child health care in the region to evaluate two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets of the ARMM government.

MDGs are eight international development goals set by the United Nations to be attained in 2015 following a summit of UN member states in 2000. It includes the reduction of child mortality and improvement of maternal health.

Dayang Jumaide, DOH-ARMM assistant secretary, said maternal and child health care have greatly improved in the ARMM with the reduction of the maternal and infant mortality rate.

In 2008, maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the region was at 245 per 100,000 live births. This was brought down to 66 per 100,000 live births in 2013, far lower than the national rate of 152 per 100,000 live births.

Further, the infant mortality rate (IMR) of 55 per 1,000 live births in 2008 in the region was reduced to 16 per 1,000 live births in 2013.

ARMM Health Secretary Dr. Kadil Sinolinding Jr. attributes the improvement to the wide use techniques such as Active Management of Third Stage Labor (AMTFL) and Essential Intra-partum Newborn Care (EINC) and on the deployment of additional health personnel, rehabilitation and construction of health infrastructures, delivery of equipment and enhancement of skills through training. 

“The ARMM pioneered techniques which greatly reduced the IMR and MMR without the use of very sophisticated machines.”

Jumaide said the two-day workshop, held August 19-20, was meant to assess maternal and child health care in the region in preparation for the MDGs evaluation survey set in 2015.

 “We would like gauge how far have we gone in achieving our commitment to the attainment of MDGs for ARMM. We want to pool together stakeholders from the government and our partners in private institutions to strategize convergence efforts and set priority areas for mutual support and program implementation.” (Bureau of Public Information/PIA-10)