Davao ordinance ensures safety of moms, kids

DAVAO CITY—The city council has passed on third and final reading a proposed ordinance that would reduce and prevent maternal and child deaths here.

Councilor Mary Joselle Villafuerte said the Systems and Mechanisms for the Implementation of the Maternal Newborn, Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) Strategy in Davao City aims to ensure that services and facilities, like clean birthing centers, are available to protect both mother and her child.

“The alarming reported deaths of mothers and infants may be attributed to the fact that most pregnant women in Davao City are unaware of the importance of or unable of access prenatal services,” the resolution said.

The ordinance also recognized that the city’s district health centers, “are wanting of sufficient supplies, equipment, facilities and trained service providers that led to the continued patronage of traditional birth attendants.”

Villafuerte said the City Health Office (CHO) recorded 62 maternal deaths when the council started working on the passage of the ordinance in 2014. She said the figure dropped to 28 in 2015 but the number could be more than that as the city could not track women who opted to deliver in their homes.

Villafuerte, who chairs the city council’s committee on health, said MNCHN will be implemented by the CHO under the assistance of the Department of Health.

Included in the provisions of the ordinance is an immunization package for children. She said there is a “dire need to establish birthing centers in remote villages of the city so the ordinance would be more effective.

Currently, three district hospitals and 17 health centers operate in the city.

“We have many birthing centers in highly urbanized areas but it is in the remote areas where we need more of them,” she said.

Villafuerte said one of the strategies is to transform the health centers into birthing facilities but the city government needs to spend P80 million to upgrade these. —JUDY QUIROS