Drug firm boosts DOH efforts to cut maternal mortality rate

MANILA, Philippines - Efforts of the Department of Health (DOH) to achieve Millennium Development Goal-5 (MDG-5) on reducing maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 2015 got a much-needed boost from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Parke Davis which will construct lying-in facilities across the country.

In Tuesday’s Bulong Pulungan forum, Pfizer Parke Davis manager for corporate social responsibility and public affairs Marco Christopher Flores said the first facility, costing about P1 million to P1.8 million, will be put up in Minalabac, Camarines Sur by next month.

Flores said the project is part of the company’s “public-private partnership” with the DOH, which is now grappling for time to meet the MDG-5 target of reducing MMR by three quarters by 2015.

“We are set to build two lying-in centers for this year with the second one slated to begin construction in October in Balugao, Pangasinan. On top of this, we will also begin an intensive training for barangay health workers to ensure that the community will get topnotch health services they deserve,” he added.

Dubbed “Nay Bahay Ligtas Paanakan Center,” the facility is made up of shipping containers that will be equipped with beds, two comfort rooms and other equipment needed in delivering babies the natural way.

The center, which will be designed by architect Jason Buensalido, will also have a waiting area and a courtyard where the mothers can take a walk before delivery. The walls will be painted in such a way that it will become “homey” for mothers.

“The centers will have a sustainable, eco-friendly design using innovated and recycled shipping containers turned into sanitary, high-quality lying-in centers. The first two structures will be replicated in more towns and cities in the coming years,” Flores said.

According to DOH Undersecretary Dr. Ted Herbosa, he is confident that MDG-5 is still “attainable” as they intend to set up 4,000 lying-in clinics nationwide.

These facilities will complement existing rural health clinics that will provide pre-natal care to mothers and will determine if a mother can bear to give birth in the lying-in clinics or in the hospital.

The lying-in centers will be manned by the personnel of existing rural health clinics and other local health facilities.

Herbosa said the project is in line with DOH Administrative Order No. 2008-0029, which mandates that every delivery be “facility-based and managed by skilled birth attendants.”

“The project is slow… For this year, we hope to construct 2,000 centers. What we want to happen is to increase facility-based delivery,” he said.

Dr. Rebecca Ramos, a consultant of the Women’s Health Care Foundation, said the Philippines’ MMR is currently pegged at 172 per 100,000 live births and the target is to reduce it to 52 percent.

Because of this, Ramos said the Philippines is one of the “priority countries” of the World Health Organization in the Western Pacific region, along with Cambodia (which has an MMR of 473), Papua New Guinea (370), and Mongolia (158).

Ramos said having skilled birth attendants to deliver babies in a health facility has been proven to improve MMR in countries like Sri Lanka, which complemented it with the promotion of family planning.