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Australia Seeks Focus on Pacific Maternal Deaths


New Report of the United Nations Population Fund Cites High Number of Women in the Pacific Dying in Childbirth in the Past Year.

Radaus

13 November 2008

CANBERA, Australia ----- The Australian Government's international development chief says overcoming the Pacific's high maternal mortality rate must become a priority, Radio Australia reports .

In a new report, the United Nations Population Fund said the number of women in the Pacific dying in childbirth has soared in the past year.

In Papua New Guinea, the number has grown by 56 per cent.

Australia’s parliamentary secretary for International Development Assistance, Bob McMullan, said  the UN agency's numbers may not tell the whole story.

He said Australia needs to rethink its aid strategy to ensure women, such as those in PNG , are getting the care they need.

“Too many women have the birth of their children without qualified attendance and it's a difficult thing because much of the country is inaccessible,” he said.

“But it has to be a priority we cannot allow so many women to be put at such risk and such a high maternal mortality rate.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations children's agency said  not one Pacific island nation would meet the millennium goal of cutting the death rate of children under five by 2015.

In a new report, UNICEF said for every one thousand births in Papua New Guinea, the Federated States  of Micronesia( FSM) , Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands, 40 children under the age of five are dying.

Solomon Islands has cut its rate from 121 per thousand to 73 in the past 16 years, but UNICEF said that's not good enough.

The UN agency report also said  Papua New Guinea has inadequate and deteriorating health infrastructure and it says the situation is worse than it was in 1990.

It said  just 39 per cent of PNG's population has access to improved drinking-water sources - the lowest rate in the world and puts the country equal last with Afghanistan.

The report concludes that the Pacific Islands region as a whole has stalled in its efforts to improve child survival.

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http://australianetwork.com/news/stories_to/2418441.htm

 

Australia Seeks Focus on Pacific Maternal Deaths

13/11/2008

The Australian government's international development chief says overcoming the Pacific's high maternal mortality rate must become a priority.

In a new report, the UN Population fund says the number of women in the Pacific dying in childbirth has soared in the past year.

In Papua New Guinea, the number has grown by 56 per cent.

Australia's parliamentary secretary for International Development Assistance, Bob McMullan, says the UN agency's numbers may not tell the whole story.

He says Australia needs to rethink its aid strategy to ensure women, such as those in PNG , are getting the care they need.

"Too many women have the birth of their children without qualilfied attendance and it's a difficult thing because much of the country is inaccessible," he said.

"But it has to be a priority we cannot allow so many women to be put at such risk and such a high maternal mortality rate."





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