Say Yes, Spring 2002: Mother and Child
By 2005, the U5MR will have been reduced from 45‰ live births to 30‰ and the IMR will have been reduced from 38‰ to 20‰.
Photograph by Rana Mullan
© UNICEF Turkey 2002
UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children Report, 2002, ranks Turkey 78th out of 187 countries in terms of the U5MR. In other words, one hundred and nine countries rate better -- among them, Syria, Iran, the Lebanon, Jordan, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Georgia, all of which have lower levels of income per capita than Turkey.
According to the UNDP country report for Turkey in 2001, Turkey is one of the fastest developing countries in the world. By comparison with the period 1990-1998, Turkey is developing rapidly and if the trend continues, Turkey can expect to be on a par with developed countries within ten years. Although five of Turkey’s eighty-one provinces are all ready at this level of development, as specified by the current Human Development Report (HDR), significant differences still exist between the remaining seventy-six provinces -- mainly in terms of health.
With over a thousand hospitals, 6,000 health centres, 80,000 physicians and other extensive facilities, it is hard to understand why Turkey scores so poorly in terms of health.
Each year, 48 out of a thousand babies and 700 mothers die which means that 133 babies and 2 mothers die every day from avoidable causes.
The MOH, with the support of UNICEF, has set about changing the situation by reducing infant and maternal mortality rates. The Advocacy Programme to Reduce MMR and IMR will run until 2005. To launch the programme, an action-packed ‘No’ to Mother and Baby Deaths campaign will run from the 14th of April until the 16th of May. The campaign will run for a total of thirty-three days, reflecting the estimated 33‰ IMR for the current year.
Features of the ‘No’ to Mother and Baby Deaths campaign will include:
- A mass media campaign to make the population more aware of their health, to stimulate demand and increase use of health services.
- Health workers, NGOs, officials, volunteer organisations, students and local personalities will march in each province in order to catch the attention of local communities and raise awareness of mother and baby deaths.
- Health directorates will organise information visits to each village where they will distribute posters and brochures.
- Health workers will demonstrate that they are an integral part of the community by providing service with a smile.
- Information brochures will be distributed in busy shopping centres.
- Television and radio will be used to help keep the programme on the national agenda.
- Every opportunity to spread the message will be exploited, such as printed envelopes, water and electricity receipts, pharmacy and shopping bags and printed hospital materials and stationery.
The Advocacy Programme on Reducing MMR and IMR will:
- improve individual consciousness of the need for health services;
- stimulate demand for health services;
- encourage health workers to improve the quality of health services;
- reduce IMR and MMR to more reasonable levels by educating and informing the community;
- minimise differences between districts and regions of the country.
By 2005, the U5MR will have been reduced from 45‰ live births to 30‰ and the IMR will have been reduced from 38‰ to 20‰.
For more information about the state of mother and child health in Turkey, read Early Childcare and Prevention of Perinatal and Neonatal Mortality in our Programmes for 2001 - 2005.
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