Date: 11/03/2008
Source: Department of Health
Title: SA: Tshabalala-Msimang: Perinatal Care Conference

Opening speech by Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Minister of Health, at the 27th Conference on Priorities in Perinatal Care in Southern Africa

Programme Director
Members of the Priorities in Perinatal Care Association
Distinguished guests (international and local)
Provincial representatives
Health professionals
Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to address you today at this special conference which brings together doctors, nurses (both midwives and paediatric) and other health professionals to share experiences. This conference will discuss current issues and evidence based practices which are essential for the improvement of maternal and neonatal outcome as well as promotion of child survival.

There are very good policies that have been developed but without full implementation of strategies the good policies alone are not enough to save lives of women, newborn and children in Africa. Acceleration of implementation of these good intervention strategies needs to be our priority.

You may recall that in 2004, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa Region Member States agreed to accelerate the attainment of millennium development goals (MDGs) relating to maternal and newborn health in Africa. In 2005, WHO devoted the World Health Report "Make Every Mother and Child Count" and the World Health Day to maternal and child health.

The African Union Health Ministers met in April 2007 to discuss strengthening of health systems as a way of accelerating implementation of all the good programmes and strategies. The outcome document of the Conference was the Africa Health Strategy 2007 to 2015. This strategy highlights about 13 key priorities essential for the improvement of the health for the people of Africa. The Bureau, which is the Governing Body for African Health Ministers currently chaired by South Africa, identified improving maternal health and child survival as one of the priorities that will receive immediate attention in implementing the strategy.

In line with the implementation of the Africa Health Strategy, South Africa will be hosting a Continental Workshop for Harmonisation of the Mortality Assessment Tools for Mothers, Neonates and Children under five years of age. We believe that mortality assessment is a key for identifying issues that need attention in order to improve quality of care.

The outcomes of such assessments should help strengthen strategies aimed at improving Maternal and Child health. We therefore need your expertise, advice and support in this continental conference and subsequent implementation processes. Recently, we launched Departmental Committees on Maternal, Perinatal and Infant deaths. Perinatal and Infant Mortality committees are new committees while the one on Maternal Mortality it was appointing new members since the three year term of office of the previous committee expired.

These committees are going to assist in collating and interpreting data that should assist us in making further advances in addressing the challenges of maternal and infant mortality in the country. Every maternal, perinatal and under five death will be recorded by these committees.

They are going to record cause of death, the contributing factors and classify that death incident accordingly. They will thereafter make recommendations of the measures that need to be taken to address preventable causes and factors. We expect these recommendations to include identification of improvements in the delivery of health services and protocols or guidelines to better manage cases within the health system.
May I also take this opportunity to thank the different professional groups that have been involved in researching and producing Saving Babies and recently Saving Children reports. This is information and knowledge we need to build on in the quest of improving the quality of care for children. As we celebrate 30 years of the Alma Ata Declaration that endorsed Primary Healthcare as a vehicle for providing accessible and affordable care for all, we need to reflect on improvement of provision of care at all levels. The strengthening of health systems and referral routes is critical in making Primary Health Care meaningful.

We are committed to ensuring that women and children in South Africa, irrespective of their geographic location and their social status are given access to health services and opportunities to live healthy lives. The challenge is for all of us to work together towards achieving this goal. Health Promotion should be our goal as we aim for prevention of disease through healthy lifestyles and immunisation.

The critical role of communities in the health of their families and that of individuals should not be underestimated. In this regard I would appeal to you all to consider innovative ways of engaging with communities and making health care more accessible to them.

We are aware of some of the challenges, especially related to human resources in provision of our health, I have just come back from the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. We all agree that more health workers need to be trained and retained within developing countries to cope with the disease burden.

In conclusion, I would like thank the Priorities in Perinatal Care Association for the continuing effort to improve maternal and neonatal outcome. I would also like to express my gratitude to the team that put together the "Every Death Counts" booklet. Their recommendations should help encourage all professionals and health care providers to improve the quality of care and further reduce all preventable deaths of mothers and children.

We are all conscious of the fact that maternal and infant mortality are a litmus test of any country's development. I do believe that if we all work together, we can drastically reduce the deaths of mothers and children and improve the quality of life. I wish you successful deliberations and hope the outcome of this conference will help improve the quality of care for our women and children.

Issued by: Department of Health
11 March 2008