UN Human Rights Council recognises maternal mortality as pressing human rights concern
In June 17th, the UN Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution that recognises preventable maternal mortality and morbidity as a pressing human-rights issue that violates a woman's rights to health, life, education, dignity, and information. In this resolution, governments express grave concern for the unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, acknowledge that this is a human rights issue and commit to enhance their efforts at the national and international level to protect the lives of women and girls worldwide. “This resolution confirms the need for political commitment and investment in quality health care before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth” says Ann Starrs, FCI’s president.
FCI calls for global aid changes
In a Comment published in the May 2009 issue of The Lancet, FCI president Ann Starrs joined leaders from the AIDS and child health communities to call for the creation of “a global fund for the health MDGs.” The authors, including Giorgio Cometto (Save the Children UK), Gorik Ooms (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium), and Paul Zeitz (Global AIDS Alliance), argue for “bold action to streamline the global aid architecture for health” by broadening the exceptional approach created for the fight against AIDS and applying it to other health needs. Specifically, they propose that the current Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the GAVI Alliance be combined and expanded to focus on strengthening health systems in developing countries. By taking a “right to health” approach and bypassing, when necessary, the current emphasis on national financial autonomy, this new global fund could continue progress on fighting specific diseases while also creating much-needed forward movement on maternal and child health. “Such radical, yet rational, action,” they write, “is our best chance of meeting — or at least making significant progress toward — the health-related MDG targets by 2015.”
Article shows out-of-pocket costs for maternity care in Africa
In an article “Out-of-pocket costs for facility-based maternity care in three African countries,” published in the journal Health Policy and Planning, FCI presents population-based household survey data on costs of maternity care in Kenya, Burkina Faso, Tanzania. This research was conducted as part of FCI’s groundbreaking Skilled Care Initiative (SCI), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The study showed that that the vast majority of women incur out-of-pocket expenses for maternity care, even where it is nominally free of charge. These costs generally represent a considerable portion of monthly household income. There was no difference in the out-of-pocket costs reported by the poorest women compared with women in the wealthiest quintiles, indicating that both user fee and nominally free services appeared to be equally regressive.
Health Policy and Planning is a peer-reviewed journal published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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