Why I'm Against a Global Fund for Maternal Health

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-07-23 04:58:00 UTC
Topics:

(photo credit: zedzap)

Several people have recently called for a global fund for maternal health, modeled after the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Their motivations are good. Maternal mortality is a shame and an embarrassment; pregnant women should not have "one foot in the grave." But another vertical program is not the answer. Programs with a single-issue focus don't strengthen health systems, and on top of that, maternal health is too complex to fit into a narrow program.

Maternal health is dependent on the existence of health care providers who can support childbirth. It's dependent on women being able to access those providers when they need them, and it's dependent on those providers being able to provide care immediately when needed. That encompasses everything from financial barriers to health care access to emergency transportation to gender equity. And more: health care provider training, basic obstetric tools, the ability to choose when to get pregnant...

Any fund that dedicated itself to the issues that affect maternal mortality would have to choose between focusing narrowly on a few medical factors that affect maternal health, or broadly covering all the different things that make a difference in the health of mothers. A narrow approach might well be efficient, but would be unlikely to have much overall impact. A broad approach would end up, well, strengthening health systems overall. Which is certainly a good thing, but it's a bit silly to set up a global fund for maternal health just to do that. We'd be better off putting money and research into improving health systems.

Continuing medical education for health care providers, better funded health systems, better medical education, access to emergency transportation, and more education on health benefit everyone, including mothers. That's where our money should go, for maternal mortality and for most other global health issues.

Alanna Shaikh
PREVIOUS STORY:
Daily Darfur: Abyei Ruling Keeps the Peace...For Now
NEXT STORY:
Campaign about Apple Factories in China Gains Wide and Diverse Support

COMMENTS (19)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.