The ‘5 Mamas Campaign’ was officially launched today by the PNG Parliamentary Group on Population and Sustainable Development.
Chair of the PNG PGPSD and Member for Sumkar, Ken Fairweather, asked members of Parliament who attended to make sure maternal health was in place in their districts.
The 5 Mamas Campaign is set to bring awareness on family planning and understanding, when a pregnant mother is facing complications.
The name came from the statistic that 5 mothers die every day in Papua New Guinea, explained by Catherine Fokes, Secretariat for PNG PGPSD.
The 5 Mama Campaign is expected to bring awareness to five issues:
1. Family Planning
2. Nutrition
3. Antenatal care
4. Supervised Births
5. Knowing what to do when there is complications in delivery.
Dame Carol Kidu, who was present at the launching, asked members of parliament to also include maternal health in their campaign speeches when it came to elections. Kidu stressed that a mother’s death in a family caused by child birth, is a big loss.
Member for Sumkar and the Chair of the PNG PGPSD, said that 4% of the district’s funds, approximately K400,000, a year can go a long way in ensuring their district has proper Maternal Health clinics.
National Planning Minister, Charles Abel, said that Air medevacs were also important when it came to saving a mother facing child birth complications. He said that 99% of the time in Alotau, the district’s medivac is used for child birth complication cases.
