Call for expanding MCHIP across Sindh to save more lives

Community midwives and lady health workers, female physicians and gynaecologists, and public health officials were all praise for the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP) of the Jhpiego Pakistan on Wednesday for saving hundreds of lives of mothers during childbirth, infants and children under the age of five as well as for preventing diseases by vaccinating thousands of children in the selected districts of Sindh during the last five years.

Belonging to from far-flung areas of the districts of Tharparkar to Jacobabad, Kashmore, Ghotki and several other towns, community midwives, lady health workers (LHWs), gynaecologists and district health officers (DHOs) said the MCHIP helped in lowering maternal and infant mortality by teaching them how to control infections, perform safe deliveries and prevent newborn deaths by using cheap but effective medicines and techniques.

“Due to the capacity building and training provided by the MCHIP specialists and experts to us, the infection rate in the labour rooms at the public and private hospitals has been brought down to five from 30 per cent, which has saved hundreds of lives of mothers and infants throughout Sindh during the last five years,” said Dr Fauzia Naveed from Christian Hospital, Kunri, while speaking at the concluding ceremony of USAID’s Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Services Component at the Najmuddin Auditorium of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of the Sindh Healthcare Commission, Dr Minhaj Kidwai, Sindh’s director general of health, Dr Muhammad Akhlaq Khan, Dr Sangita Patel of USAID Pakistan, Jhpiego Pakistan Country Director Dr Farid Midhat and other government and public health officials were also present on the occasion.

Hundreds of midwives, LHWs, gynaecologists and DHOs were trained by the experts on lowering the maternal and infant mortality rate from 311 per 100,000 live births to less than 150. Also, training manuals were prepared and distributed to health workers and the capacity of training institutions and trainers was improved to promote modern health practices and techniques to achieve the desired results in the area of maternal, newborn and child health.

Tia Bai, a community midwife from a remote village in Tharparkar, said the training by the MCHIP officials helped her to save lives of several women during deliveries and their newborn babies by using the antiseptic gel and medicines that helped in preventing blood loss. She added that now she was disseminating the knowledge and skills she had acquired from her trainers to other women in her area.

Other LHWs and public officials claimed that service delivery and support provided under the MCHIP had brought about a revolution in areas where they were working and the quality of life had also improved there due to improvements in local healthcare facilities. They added that this programme was a model for the provincial government to replicate it in other districts of the province.

The chief executive officer of the Sindh Healthcare Commission, Dr Minhaj Kidwai, lauded that USAID and Jhpeigo Pakistan for their support for lowering the maternal and infant mortality rate in the province, saying this area needed urgent attention of the authorities as thousands of women and infants were dying whose lives could be saved by bringing little improvement in healthcare facilities and services.

He said the Sindh Healthcare Commission was formally being launched on Thursday in the province, and added that the government needed support from international agencies and organisations as the gigantic task of providing healthcare facilities to remote areas was not possible for the authorities alone.

DG Health Services Dr Muhammad Akhlaq Khan felicitated USAID for capacity building and human resource development in the area of mother and child health, as well as for immunization, and hoped that these services would be used effectively by the government to provide better healthcare facilities to women and children.