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​Conference on mother and child health calls for more dedicated efforts​​

October 13, 2015

​Addressing the closing ceremony on the second day of the French Medical Institute for Children’s fifth international conference, Dr Abdul Basir Sarwar Deputy Minister of Public Health, stressed on the need for more dedicated efforts to fulfill Afghanistan’s Call to Action: Renewing the Promise for Maternal and Child Survival to improve the health of mothers, children and newborns.

“The Ministry of Public Health, with the support of partners, is committed to drastically reducing the maternal mortality ratio to 250 deaths per 100,000 live births, neonatal mortality rate to 25 and child mortality rate to 65 deaths per 1,000 live births, and stunting rate in under 5-year-olds to 30 per cent by 2020,” he commented. 

“Call to Action Scorecards that monitor performance on a range of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, and nutrition indicators, publicly available and reviewed four times a year, will help track progress on these targets.”

Dr Abdullah Fahim, Medical Director, FMIC, summarizing the conference discussions, pointed out: “We really need to invest in the healthcare system. Only then can proven, cost-effective interventions to improve mother and child services in rural as well as urban areas of Afghanistan be implemented.”

In the morning sessions, participants discussed the need for capacity building, including additional opportunities for higher education for women in midwifery, nursing and medicine and for quality postgraduate residency programmes in Afghanistan. Specialist medical education would help provide advanced medical services at the tertiary level, and provide the much-needed exposure to advanced techniques in medical care, especially in cardiology, surgery, orthopaedics and anaesthesiology. All these changes would lead to improved patient safety and care in public and private hospitals.

Between the sessions, there were poster and abstract presentations, with over 130 abstracts available. More than 500 participants from public and private sector hospitals, including Cure Hospital, Global Hospital, Rabia Balkhi Hospital, Cheragh Medical University, Kunduz Provincial Hospital, Wazir Akber Khan Hospital, Shinozadah Hospital and Sardar Mohammad Dawood Hospital attended the conference.​

About FMIC
The French Medical Institute for Children, the only ISO certified hospital in Kabul, offers high quality care and medical education in the quest to build a sustainable healthcare system for Afghanistan. Since 2006, FMIC has carried out 2,000 plus paediatric cardiac surgeries, served over 3 million child and adult patients, trained 700 medical professionals, and employ 95 per cent Afghan staff. As a not-for-profit hospital, FMIC is run through an innovative partnership between the Governments of Afghanistan and France, the Aga Khan University part of the Aga Khan Development Network and the French NGO, La Chaîne de l’Espoir.

For more information, please visit www.fmic.org.af​