As Printed in the National Post February 4, 2010

Every minute of every day, a woman dies giving birth. The toll is staggering: 530,000 pregnant women a year perish, 95% of them in developing countries. Remarkably, 80% of these maternal deaths are from five entirely preventable or treatable causes: sepsis, hemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labour, or as a consequence of a septic abortion.

For every death, dozens of women sustain life-altering and irreversible injuries. Many develop obstetric fistulae that leave them incontinent of urine and feces, and pariahs within their own developing-world communities. (more…)

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The world needs a central command-and-control centre to respond to disasters quickly and orderly.

Five days after the massive earthquake hit Haiti, little aid was reaching the beleaguered people on the ground. Access to crucial medical care, food, and water was scant. Extractive efforts beyond what the people were doing with shovels and their bare hands were largely non-existent. Haitians, starving, dangerously dehydrated, and exposed to a withering sun, were dying by the thousands. This, despite the fact that large quantities of donated emergency supplies were sitting on the tarmac of the country’s main airport in Port-au-Prince.

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Dr. Keith Martin speaking in the House of Commons on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2009.

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The following article was published in the Montreal Gazette:

Canada must help the women of the Eastern Congo

By Keith Martin, MP, Sarina Rehal, and Simon Child
November 24, 2009

Right now, violence is escalating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a region that has been devastated for over a decade by a series of conflicts that are collectively the worlds deadliest crisis since World War II”. Shockingly a girl who lives in this region has a greater chance of being raped than she does of going to school. (more…)

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By Keith Martin, Special to The Windsor Star
August 29, 2009

Recently, we marked World Humanitarian Day, and it is not good enough for us to congratulate ourselves on our humanitarian successes of the past.

We should use this day to mobilize resources to stop the gross humanitarian disasters that continue to destroy the lives of the poorest people on the planet. None of these crises are more appalling and neglected than the brutality that continues to fester in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
(more…)

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Dr. Keith Martin, National Post
July 4, 2009

When G8 leaders meet in L’Aquila, Italy, next week, investing in maternal health is the most important thing they can do to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

Parliamentarians from around the world met in Rome last week and concluded that prioritizing maternal health in times of crisis is a strategic investment that will produce substantial reductions in social and healthcare costs and will have the most powerful effect on population health as a whole.
(more…)

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I would like to share some staggering facts with you in light of the upcoming World Water Day 2009. The single largest cause of sickness in the world can be traced to the lack of safe drinking water and inadequate sanitation. Presently, the Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation will not succeed in Sub-Saharan African and Oceania and will fall 700 million people short of its worldwide goal.
(more…)

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“Yes we can” change our mission in Afghanistan

Dear President Obama,

Long after you have left the White House the world will remember the famous words you used to bring a nation to its feet, and to signal the beginning of a new era for the American people: “yes we can.” It is with this same spirit of fortitude and courage that I suggest to you that, “yes we can” change our mission in Afghanistan, to finally forge, as you noted in your inaugural address, a hard earned peace in this tortured country. (more…)

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Below is an article that appeared in the Times Colonist:

-Keith

Islanders race to aid desperate cholera victims in Zimbabwe
PUBLICATION: Times Colonist (Victoria)
DATE: 2008.12.18
BY: Jack Knox

Funny how a little heat can thaw the frozen wheels of government.

Just over a week ago, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin asked Ottawa to ship desperately needed medical supplies to Zimbabwe. Millions of dollars worth of cholera medicine had been donated, but there was no way to get it to Africa.
(more…)

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While our economic downturn and job losses certainly mean an economic crisis for Canada, a crisis of a different nature is unfolding half way around the world in Zimbabwe: Cholera. Cholera is an entirely preventable and treatable disease, yet, due to abhorrent living conditions, it has hit Zimbabwe, killing hundreds and putting thousands of people at risk. (more…)

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