DOH asked to implement programs vs maternal deaths

BAGAC, Bataan, Philippines  – A medical expert appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) to implement programs that would arrest the increasing maternal deaths in the country.

Dr. Florence Macagba-Tadiar, executive director of the Institute for Social Studies and Action, said despite advances in medical technology, Filipino “women are still dying from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes.”

Tadiar pointed out the Philippines would likely fail to meet the Millennium Development Goal-6 (MDG-6) by failing to reduce the maternal mortality rate (MMR).

Tadiar said the DOH should now focus on the “three delays” that cause maternal deaths.

“These deaths are highly preventable as treatments to avoid these deaths have been well known since the 1950s,” Tadiar told a seminar sponsored by Newsbreak and the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines.

Under MDG-6, the goal is to have an MMR of 52 per 100,000 live births by 2015.

But based on the DOH’s Progress Report on MDG, the country’s maternal mortality rate is still 162 per 100,000 live births.

Maternal mortality pertains to the death of women while pregnant or within 43 days “of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.”

Tadiar underscored the need for the DOH to focus its efforts on the “three delays” that have been the “underlying causes” of mothers’ deaths.

These are the delay in “deciding to seek medical care because of poor capacity to recognize danger signs, or due to financial and cultural constraints.”

Another delay, according to Tadiar, is the failure to seek appropriate care because of lack of access to health care facilities or lack of awareness to existing services.

She said another cause of delay is the inadequacy in skilled health workers or the lack of equipment, drugs and supplies.

Tadiar said the DOH should intensify programs to address the major causes of maternal deaths, primarily on “post-partum hemorrhage, ectopic pregnancy, vaginal/cervical lacerations” and infections, such as septicemia, puerperal sepsis and septic shock secondary to pelvic infection and post-abortion complications.

“To be pregnant, so many organs of your body are involved. It is a great joy to be pregnant but you’re also scared…women need to be helped,” Tadiar stressed.