Maternal Health article on the Medical News Website
Friday, February 5th, 2010
G8 Summit Needs International Action Plan To Reduce Childhood, Maternal Mortality
In a National Post opinion piece, Canadian Member of Parliament Keith Martin, “who chaired the drafting committee at the 2009 G8 International Parliamentarians’ Conference in Rome, which put together a plan of action to reduce maternal and infant mortality,” welcomes the recent announcement by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that maternal and child mortality will be a focus of the G8 summit this summer. Martin asserts that “the summit cannot be just another milquetoast, feel-good document. The leaders must announce a comprehensive International Action Plan to reduce childhood and maternal mortality.”
Martin outlines the plan to reduce maternal mortality that he and other parliamentarians crafted last summer, that included, as he writes, calls “for strategic investments in access to primary care: basic surgical facilities, medications, a full array of family planning options, diagnostics, adequate nutrition, clean water, power, and most importantly, trained health-care workers.” Martin suggests, G8 leaders “can use this as a template to mobilize the world’s most powerful nations when they meet in Ontario this summer to end this global tragedy” (2/4).
