In response to Making Pregnancy Safer, what are the current programs in the country to address maternal mortality and morbidity? Cite at least 1.
With the latest maternal mortality rate of 121 deaths/100,000 live births in 2017 (Take note that this is the latest data that can be found), it is undeniably high and far from the Millennium Development Goals 2030, which is to reach 70 deaths/100,000 live births. Furthermore, maternal morbidity shows the leading causes that includes pregnancy complications, hypertension, postpartum hemorrhage, and unsafe abortion.
To address the maternal mortality and morbidity issues, here are the following on-going programs in the country:
1. National Safe Motherhood Program by DOH:
In the said program, its vision is to provide a full means to health services to be able to deliver a healthy pregnancy and safer delivery. To accomplish the said vision, this program would aim to provide quality maternal-newborn service package to each province and city. This would inculde providing sustainable, cost-effective aproach of delivering health sevices that even women belonging to marginalized sector would have access to the high quality maternal and newborn health services and to be able to deliver safe and successful pregnancy to health facilities near their home. The program would also like to monitor, educate, implement, and mainstream Family Planning (FP) methods to different regions, especially those with high unmet need. Aside from this, the program aims to provide training centers for skills training of Basic Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (BEmONC).
What can you suggest in order to decrease our maternal mortality and morbidity in the country? Give at least 3 suggestions.
1. Standardize, Educate, and Institutionalize Family Planning
With unsafe abortion as one of the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity, family planning will help address this major issue. Even those in poor households are less likely to practice Family Planning (As stated in the latest PSA data of 2001). The main reason is the capability of women non-poor households to undergo sterilization compared to poor ones. Thus, it is important to educate each one of us the different family planning methods and the concept of each family planning itself. This would allow each of us, especially women, to choose the appropriate method that best suits them. With different family planning methods that can be chosen, this would help women prevent any unwanted or unintended pregnancies which puts their maternal health at great risk. Family Planning allows women to control the number of births, thus reducing the risks of different complications and issues on pregnancy and labor, which then decreases maternal mortality and morbidity in the country.
2. Increase the Number of Health Facilities
Some of the factors that influences maternal deaths and morbidity include living in rural and remote areas. With not much health infrastructures built towards these areas, it puts the maternal health of women at risk. Being clueless about the condition and status of the fetal growth and maternal health creates an anxiety and could also develop a higher chances of short-term/long-term health complications to both children and the mother. In an article by Flores (2020), it was mentioned that hospitals are mainly scattered within Metro Manila. Meanwhile, Palawan, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Sur, and coastal regions of Cagayan, Isabela, and Aurora only have a few hospitals. Thus, to make the healthcare system accessible to women, I thought that increasing and widespreading the healthcare facilities would allow each of us to have equal access to them, especially to women and pregnants.
3. Increase the Manpower of Healthcare Workers
As good as our healthcare system may be, the medical expenses are not that budget-friendly that everyone can handle. Referring to the graphic data of number of hospitals in the article of Flores (2020), it shows that if private hospitals were to be excluded in the list, there were only selected government hospitals available on such vicinities. Thus, as important the routine check-up may be to some women, it is mainly hindered by the costly medical expenses.
Not only the medical infrastructures is the problem here, but also the number of skilled workers available to different communities is also an issue. We know how bad is the healthcare system in our country, and there are a number of factors as to why there are a lack of skilled workers in the country. First is the low salary and overtime of shiftings. With our healthcare workers not compensated enough based on the number of hours they work, it puts a lot of burden to them that it even affects their mental health. With that, some of them would choose to migrate towards different countries as they are treated more equally and properly compensated than our country does. With not much skilled workers available in the area, this would affect the maternal health of women since they would need to travel towards a different healthcare facility, which increases the overall expenses. And in worst cases, if there are really no skilled workers within the area, it would also lead to different pregnancy complications and thus, contributing towards the maternal mortality and morbidity.
References:
Department of Health. (n.d.). Maternal Deaths by Main Cause. https://doh.gov.ph/Statistics/Maternal-Deaths-By-Main-Cause
Department of Health. (n.d.). National Safe Motherhood Programhttps://doh.gov.ph/national-safe-motherhood-program
Flores, L.J. (2020, May 23). Hospitals in the Philippines Where they are - and aren't. Rappler. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/locations-mapping-hospitals-healthcare-facilities-philippines/
Knoema. (n.d.). Philippines - Maternal Mortality Ratio. https://knoema.com/atlas/Philippines/Maternal-mortality-ratio
Philippine Statistics Authority. (2001, March 7). Women in Poor Households are Less Likely to Practice Family Planning. https://psa.gov.ph/content/women-poor-households-are-less-likely-practice-family-planning