The Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon has called for more efforts to ensure better maternal health services in order to prevent avoidable deaths of mothers while giving birth.

Ban who was speaking today during a visit to Ethiopia said that while there has been remarkable progress in the fight against maternal mortality, more effort is still needed.

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon

According to a news relase from the UN, Ban met with the staff providing essential services to communities previously living without ready access to such care at Ambo Mesk.

The UN boss said training good health workers and good midwives can save a lot of women’s and also children’s lives.

He said statistics show that every 25 minutes, another Ethiopian woman dies from complications related to child birth. Most are in rural areas, far from any clinic.

Ban also visited a larger health centre, a few kilometres away, which supports the health post by providing it with supplies and on-the-job training.

“I hope that the Government will try to expend these posts, clinics and centres and also hospitals,” the Secretary-General said

Ban commended Ethiopia on its commitment to improve maternal and child health, including its goal of quadrupling the number of midwives. “The country is a good example of how a little investment can go a long way in saving many lives,” he added.

At a major UN development summit in New York last September, participants adopted the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, committing $40 billion in resources to a global effort to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015.

The Strategy identifies the finance and policy changes needed, along with vital interventions to help improve health and save lives. It is expected to prevent, between 2011 and 2015, the deaths of more than 15 million children under five, as well as 33 million unwanted pregnancies and the deaths of 740,000 women from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Ultimate Media