ISLAMABAD:
After the travel restrictions imposed on Pakistan due to its failure to eradicate polio, Pakistan is in for another embarrassment on the health front situation due to its poor performance in improving maternal and child well-being.
According to an annual Save the Children study, “State of the World’s Mothers: saving mothers and children in humanitarian crises”, launched by Save the Children on Tuesday, Pakistan is ranked 147 out of 178 countries listed and dead last in South Asia in terms of child and maternal well-being due to poor healthcare services, poverty, malnutrition and natural calamities.
The mothers’ index assesses the well-being of mothers and children around the globe, showing which countries are succeeding --- and which are failing --- in saving and improving the lives of mothers and their children. Overall, Finland was ranked the best place to be a mother for the second straight year, and Somalia came in last.
The report says that in Pakistan, maternal mortality has been cut by almost half, child mortality decreased by a quarter, expected years of schooling increased by 3.3 years and gross national income per capita rose 270 per cent over the past 15 years.
“If all newborn babies in Pakistan experienced the same survival rates as newborns from the richest 20 percent of the population, 48,000 more babies would survive each year,” states the report.
The study further reveals that the majority of deaths in Pakistan are reported from socially-excluded communities. Meanwhile, the country lead the world in the numbers of people affected by conflict --- 28 million --- with Nigeria the next worst, with 19 million.
“Pakistan has seen improvements on child and maternal well-being over the past 15 years despite conflict and natural disasters,” said Save the Children Country Director David Skinner.
He said we should be concerned that we have fallen behind our neighbours because we are not making improvements for mothers and children quickly enough.
“Many children are still dying from preventable causes. Mothers are giving birth alone at home and children are not staying in school,” he said.
Moreover, Pakistan is vulnerable to seasonal floods, droughts and earthquakes, which have become more severe in recent years with climate change, he said.
“It has caused losses in crops and livestock and damage to homes and other assets in the worst-affected areas, which in turn can cause a spike in malnutrition, school dropouts, and a decrease in usage of paid health services,” said Skinner.
Pakistan also has pockets of conflict where mothers and their children are likely to face widespread shortages of essential services he said, adding that the lack of health services, coupled with poor living conditions for internally-displaced populations, can be fatal, especially for pregnant women and newborns.
Recommendations
To protect mothers and children in the aftermath of disasters in Pakistan, the report urged the federal and provincial governments, and civil society to ensure that every mother and newborn living in crisis areas has access to high quality healthcare, including family planning services, and breastfeeding counselling.
Other recommendations include building the resilience of health systems to minimise the damaging effects of crises on health, developing national and local preparedness plans tailored to respond to the specific needs of mothers, children and babies in emergencies, and to ensure adequate financing and coordination for timely responses to mothers and children’s needs in emergencies.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 7th, 2014.
COMMENTS (20)
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@Pakistani 1: So according to you Balochistan, Karachi, Gilgit Baltistan and KPK are not conflict affected? Or in yoru mind it is normal for people to be identified as belonging to a particular sect and be shot dead? Is it normal for people to go to a mosque to pray and not come out alive because a suicide bomber blew up the mosque? It is normal for there to be NO Go areas in a large metro ciy where even a police dare not enter? It is normal for polio workers to be shot dead? It is normal for an ordinary laborer to be shot dead just because he hails from a different province? Because these are just the sort of things that have been happening in KPK, GB, Balochistan and Karachi?
No my friend. If anything the 15 million number shown as Pakistani people living in conflict affected areas is an underestimate.
@Asif Sheikh: Which reliable figures were you referring to? Child mortality rate (number of children out of 1000 who die before the age of 5) in India is 52 and in Pakistan it is around 90. Maternal mortality rate of India ( number of women out of 100,000 who give birth dying due to birth related cause within 3 weeks of giving birth) is 178 and it is 254 in Pakistan. Lifetime risk of maternal mortality also includes the number of times women give birth because maternal mortality rate comes into play each time. Here too, Total fertility rate in India is 2.4 and in Pakistan it is over 3:5
If you have any recent data from a reputed source that shows that Pakistanhas better numbers than India in either child mortality, maternal mortality or total fertility rate - please provide links.
@Khizer Jalal: Yessss! that's what pakistani want and need mostly I guess.. still people would vote them...
@Yumna: Totally agree! I don't know why pakistanis are so crazy about indian's progress, indian's way of living and now indian's potato, tamato...
Instead of giving their two cents, offering ideas for possible solutions or just contributing a general comment, its turned into (yet again) a comparison between Pakistan India. Pathetic. Why it's always a race between the two countries I'll never understand..... in comparison to the developed world, neither one has any room to speak and should rather be focusing on viable long term solutions as opposed to striving for a reward for being among the lowest ranking countries when it comes to the way they treat their women and their mothers.
@Asif Sheikh:
"Have you forgotten South Asia includes india too – our health figures are much better than india’s – check any reliable source and please stop biased propaganda."
The same report places India at 137, still a very bad rank and nothing to be proud about. However, why do you have to jump to drag India into this instead of accepting the truth and support efforts to improve the situation in Pakistan? So, you are happy as long as India is in the same boat as Pakistan on negative news? Doesn't this sad news on the state of women raise a concern and compassion in your heart?
The report should have properly said that these Infant mortality rate figures are due to the IDP's and the conflict in KPK and FATA region. At the start the report talks about the Infant mortality rate in the country and suddenly jumps to people affected by conflicts...poor reporting. All countries suffering from Internally displaced persons have high infant mortality rate. This is not true of the rest of the population.
@Pakistani 1: These figures have been taken from the comprehensive report compiled by Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) during 2013. The stats are not only focussed on FATA region it comprises of the affected population all across the country.
You can read the report for more information at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/PubID303ConflictReport.pdf
@ A.Sid @true blue @PAtriot.N @asif sheik India is still better than you despite being huge country and varied chalenges of 1.2billion plus population standing at 142 while you at 147. We are not even placed in same category you are put amongst Somalia,Congo,ethopia,Afghanistan etc get the difference and standing? Stop obsessing over india to hide your shames and problems. Bringing india into everything won't make your problems go away.
BUT!!!! but we've got Metro , dont we?? :)
This is not peculiar to Pakistan. India, Bangladesh has also worst HDI index. In India 16.5 lacs infants deaths compared to 3 lacs in Pakistan. Still an alarming figure for both countries. when such figure is given we need to look at south Asia and cannot single out Pakistan.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-has-highest-child-mortality-rate-says-un-report-266616
Forget south Asia, India the fourth worst country for mothers in the world.
http://motherindiabook.com/2011/06/16/india-4th-worst-place-in-the-world-for-women-to-live/
Ironically the caption and the text has no coherence. The text talks about improvement, overall. The report says that in Pakistan, maternal mortality has been cut by almost half, child mortality decreased by a quarter, expected years of schooling increased by 3.3 years and gross national income per capita rose 270 per cent over the past 15 years.
@Asif Sheikh: For God's sake stop trying to compete with India for everything!!!! there's a limit to being insecure :S can we focus on resolving our own problems instead??!
28 million people affected by conflicts. It is like 2.8 crores. There is hardly a few lacs people affected by conflicts in FATA, unless the survey is including the afghan refugees, even they do not numbers more than 3 million.
Seems like the caption is taken from an Indian publication. Here is the real story
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-among-worst-places-to-become-a-mother-Survey/articleshow/5887980.cms
"Pakistan is ranked 147 out of 178 countries listed and dead last in South Asia in terms of child and maternal well-being"
Have you forgotten South Asia includes india too - our health figures are much better than india's - check any reliable source and please stop biased propaganda.
From head to toe, I haven't seen a single news of something good happening in Pakistan on today's tribune......:(
So guess all those pakistanis always ready to sing the India poverty song should take a hike and get smacked!