PESHAWAR – Speakers at a consultative workshop Thursday stressed the need for giving priority to maternal health while devising national and provincial policies, which will help improve Maternal Neonatal Health (MNH) situation. “It is also needed to identify the policy gaps in accesses to better healthcare and maternal facilities to specially adolescent girls and young mothers,” the participants said at a consultative workshop organised for journalists here at Peshawar Press Club. It was aimed at advocating improved maternal and MNH and Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) policy and practice for marginalized adolescent girls and young mothers, held under the auspices of Rahuman, a non-governmental organization. In the daylong consultative session more than 25 media persons, both from print and electronic media were participated.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar Hussain was chief guest at the programme. Notable among the speakers on the occasion included Haji Sattar Gul, vice President Rahuma and Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP), Regional Director Gohar Zaman, AIM project coordinator, Yasrab Nazir, and Director Adolescent Nabila Malik.
The keynote speaker, Ms Nabila Malik, as Director Adolescent in his presentation called for adopting holistic approaches instead of bio-medical paradigm for addressal of maternal health issues. She regretted that around 59 percent girls below age of 30 of the total population had been ignored by policy makers as adolescent group was unrecognized, and lacking any concrete plan to cope with their growing issues in the country.
She stressed the need for giving special focus to the huge population of adolescent girls and to address their issues on basis under a tangible policy. She also urged upon the government, relevant stakeholders and policy makers not to underestimate the huge girls’ population, who were depriving of basic health facilities. She underlined that economic and social empowerment was key to address the growing challenges being faced by adolescent women and young mothers. AIMS Ms Yasrab Nazir sharing her statistical presentation said that an alarming situation was being existed regarding the MNH, as mortality rate is quit high in the country. She informed the Bolachistan province was the highest maternal and infant morality ratio, followed by Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab province.
The Minister for Information, Mian Iftikhar addressing the workshop as chief guest said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Legislative Assembly had passed a bill for protection of rights of women, which could be handy to address all such women related issues. He highlighted the role of media for mobilization and sanitization of general masses about the alarming situation pertaining to women health issues.
The minister said the protecting rights women are our social responsibility, and nobody can ignore it. “We need to accept ground reality and face the growing challenges in any sector, particularly health”, he stressed.
Later on, talking to media persons, provincial minister said that ANP has opposed the Local Government Ordinance in Sindh, which was a individual move, saying that there need to introduce a uniform system, which could be acceptable to people across the country. ANP members were resigned in protest and sit on opposition benches over the concerns of the party leadership on the LG ordinance. “We would only support a uniform LG system as any separate move was created more anxieties and complication”, he maintained.