The Programme for the Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality, PROMAC, today (Tuesday, November 3, 2015) continued to enhance it mandate to reduce infant, child and maternal deaths with the signing of six contracts. The contracts will see the design of neonatal and maternal high dependency units (HDU), specialised equipment, the provision of ambulances as well as behaviour change and awareness support to the Ministry of Health.
The contracts were signed at a special ceremony at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston between the Ministry of Health and architectural firms to design eleven (11) neonatal and maternal High Dependency Units at six (6) hospitals in Jamaica. The units will provide service to high risk mothers and new-borns and increase the quality of care they receive. The hospitals which will benefit from the units are Victoria Jubilee l, Mandeville, Cornwall Regional, Spanish Town, and St. Ann’s Bay Hospitals and the Bustamante Hospital for Children. The contracts also include designs for the physical rehabilitation of four primary health care centres and two community hospitals.
The contracts will also see the provision of specialized medical equipment and supplies to be used in the HDUs. Among the other service provisions of the contract is the supply of six (6) ambulances to improve referrals from primary health care facilities to secondary and tertiary hospitals. These contracts are valued at approximately € 1.9 million or $253 million Jamaican dollars, as part of the European Union €22 million in funding set aside for the programme being administered through the Ministry of Health.
Work on the construction of the HDUs is expected to begin in late 2016, and the new facilities will provide operating theatres devoted exclusively to obstetric interventions and enhanced bed capacity for mothers and neonates in need of high dependency care.
Two contracts were also signed with RISE Life Management and the National Family Planning Board for the implementation of behaviour change and awareness programmes.
In the meantime other areas of the multifaceted programme have also been progressing with training for some of the 86 specialist physicians and nurses at the University of the West Indies well underway.
Head of Delegation for the European Union to Jamaica, Ambassador Paola Amadei, in her remarks commended Jamaica’s progress on infant, child and maternal mortality but cautioned that there was still more that could be done. “We all will not be satisfied as long as the objective to end all preventable infant and child deaths as well as maternal deaths is not attained.” she noted.
The PROMAC strategy also includes the training of 1000 primary health workers and 200 community health aides across the country. This training has already commenced and will continue over the next two years.
PROMAC, protecting mother and child…securing the future.