By Kurt Campbell
[www.inewsguyana.com] – According to figures released by Health Minister Dr. Bheri Ramsarran, Guyana recorded a total of 18 maternal deaths in 2013.
The Minister sees this as a huge accomplishment while pointing out that in 2012 the country recorded 25 maternal deaths.
According to Dr. Ramsaran this is an indication that Guyana is one step closer to achieving its millennium development Goal (MDG) of improving maternal health/child mortality.
He told reporters that it is the Ministry intention to put maternal health on the ‘front burning’ in 2013 and work assiduously to improve it. The Minister went on to boast of mechanisms in place to investigate and made recommendation surround every maternal death.
“Every death is one too much and we are working to bring to the number of maternal deaths to zero.”
Guyana’s goals and targets are to reduce the Maternal Mortality Ratio from 320 per 100,000 in 1991 to less than 80 per 100,000 by 2015, reduce under 5 mortality rate from 75 per 1000 in 1990 to less than 20 per 1000 by 2015, reduce infant mortality rate from 45 per 1000 from 1990 to less than 16 per 1,000 by 2015 and reduce Mother To Child Transmission (MTCT) of HIV prevalence from 7.1 percent in 2001 to less than two percent by 2015.
MDG 4 seeks to reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under five mortality rate. There has been some achievement in this regard, including scaling downward of child mortality by 50 percent in the past decade, and in Guyana’s progress report 2011, the country has already met the target of reducing the under five mortality rate by two- thirds, and aims to further improve its record of reducing child mortality.
