HÀ NỘI — A Save the Children project helped improve knowledge on maternal and newborn care for thousands of mothers and health workers in Yên Bái, Đắk Lắk and Cà Mau provinces from mid 2012 to December 2016.

The project helped build three newborn units for hospitals of Yên Bái Province including those in Trạm Tấu and Lục Yên districts. Following several training courses, surgeons of the Trạm Tấu District hospital performed three surgeries with the support of colleagues from the provincial hospital, although no surgery was undertaken at the hospital over the past eight years.

Maternal fatality rate has reduced, while many premature newborns have been saved thanks to the facilities and human resource support from the project, according to a health worker at Đắk Lắk General Hospital’s Obstetrics Unit. Project experiences also contributed to development of the National Master Plan for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health for 2016-2020 and the National Guidelines for Reproductive Health services.

With a fund of US$3.5 million from the Atlantic Philanthropies Foundation, the project titled “Scale up of the model of Household to hospital Continuum of Maternal and Newborn Care" in Việt Nam, was implemented by the Ministry of Health and the Huế Medicine and Pharmacy University.

The project aims to improve access to quality maternal and newborn health services, to increase demand for and utilisation of those services by mothers and newborns and to strengthen the ongoing management and policy environment to ensure sustained reductions in maternal and newborn death and disability.

Over the past decade, Việt Nam has seen extraordinary advancements in maternal, newborn and child survival due to improvements in available health services and better access to antenatal care across the country. Despite significant improvements, there is increasing disparity in the health status and mortality rates between different regions and ethnic groups in Việt Nam.

In the 62 poorest districts where most minority ethnic women live, maternal mortality rates are three times higher than the national average -- 157 deaths per 100,000 live births. The under-five mortality among minority ethnic populations was 53 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014, more than 2.5 times higher than the national rate, according to the health ministry. — VNS