STAKEHOLDERS in the health sector have called for increased community participation in the fight to reduce maternal mortality and child mortality rates in the country.
Feluna Nleya Staff Reporter
Addressing a media health briefing in Harare yesterday, Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) executive director Itai Rusike said there was need to increase the number of village health workers from the current 10 000 to ensure adequate provision of primary health care in remote areas.
“Why do we still have such high maternal deaths in the country when we have a lot of resources coming in to support the health sector?” Rusike said.
“We may celebrate a bit because of the new figure of 525/100 000 live births, but it is still a high number.
“What we need are very strong community cadres who can support primary health care.
“The specific scope of work for this project is to strengthen citizen engagement in monitoring and advocating for improved quality of health care services through revitalising primary health care. This will be achieved through strengthening community structures such as health centre committees and maternal, neo-natal and child health services in order to organise public efforts for improvement of these services.”
CWGH working in partnership with Save the Children and the Ministry of Health and Child Care have jointly embarked on a national project to improve maternal health care.
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The three-year period, which is expected to end in 2015, is aimed at supporting government priorities towards the reduction of maternal and child mortality.
Save the Children project director Alice Mazarura said the project was being implemented in eight provinces and 14 districts of Zimbabwe where the Health Transition Fund was also being implemented.
