The Government of Dominica is committed to reducing the rate of infant mortality on the island by the year 2019.
That assurance has come from the island’s Health Minister, Julius Timothy.
Timothy made reference to this when he addressed the start of a Surveillance of Healthcare-associated infections workshop on Tuesday at the Garraway Hotel.
The Minister revealed that Dominica’s infant mortality rate rose to 29.9 per 1000 births in 2011. He said most of these deaths were associated with prematurity and infection.
He said the Government of Dominica, with funding from the European Union, recently embarked on a project to reduce infant mortality to 10 per 1000 births by 2019.
The Minister cautions that while the rate of infant mortality will never be zero, the Ministry of Health through its health care providers, will continue in its efforts to save the lives of premature babies.
“We are trying everything to ensure that these premature babies survive. I think we have to congratulate our healthcare professionals at the Stronach ward at the Princess Margaret Hospital for their tremendous efforts at saving premature babies,” he said.
The Minister informed the workshop that immediate and urgent attention has already commenced to address the issue of infections among babies, whether acquired in hospitals or elsewhere.
He said a new system for the monitoring of processes and procedures intended to minimize the acquisition of infections has been implemented by the newly formed Quality Assurance Department at the Princess Margaret Hospital”.
This system according to the Minister “has already been showing improvements in the maintenance of the required standards”.
The Minister added, “this new system at the hospital supports the work of the Infections Control Department which has been working steadily over the years to minimize infections and identify and respond to outbreaks where they occur”.
He noted that this week’s workshop will greatly assist these ongoing efforts by ensuring that the island’s healthcare professionals including lab support staff, strengthen their mechanism for collecting, collating, analyzing and disseminating data which is essential for administrators and policy makers to make the best evidence based, informed, decisions required to meet the island’s infant mortality objectives.
Minister Timothy added that this week’s workshop demonstrates that Dominica and sister countries in the sub- region are taking action on their commitment to reduce healthcare-associated infections in line with the World Health Organization (WHO) world alliance for patient safety.
Dominica, along with thirteen other Caribbean member states, in September 2007 pledged to the World Health Organization that they would address the issue of healthcare associated infections.
As a result, Dominica, as well as other signatories, is required to take a number of actions including, acknowledging the importance of health care associated infections and to enhance national campaigns to promote hand hygiene among health care providers.
The participating countries are also expected to inform their local communities and districts of healthcare associated infections in order to foster appropriate actions.
two things i found interesting about the article was
when he mentioned that HE WOULD ADDRESS THE INFECTIONS OF BABIES WHETHER IT CAME FROM THE HOSPITAL OR ELSE WHERE which is a admission that babies are dying because of the unsanitary practises of the hospital,this is very alarming for such a small hospital,i wonder if this is linked to our hatiaian brothers and sisters who they have now urged to get vaccinated all of a sudden after been here for years,and the second interesting point is that the goverment as finally given a seminar to the garraway hotel,probably a reward for the manager quitting politics.
One way to start is by discouraging parents allowing babies to sleep on their stomachs. Always on their back until they can turn on their own
very interesting article..a lot of interesting words: quality assurance, workshop, commitment etc…you always can put it in much more simplistic way: healthcare in Dominica is crap, facilities are primitive, lack of specialists, diagnostics are bad, hygien is not followed at all…and the main thing you need to invest heavily to tackle this non-sense…invest not to conduct presentations
The Minister referred to infant mortality rate. While he addressed other issues which could lead to their deaths and how best to tackle the issue with proper education and health care assistance, pregnant women must primarily take care of themselves. This could also be done with the help of the Health Care Department, especially where poverty and ignorance of proper health, caring for oneself exist.
In bygone years mothers had their babies at home with the help of a midwife. There may have been a few infant deaths, also that of a few mothers. However, consider the amount of babies who were born in that manner, many of whom are now adults and are still healthy, thank God. I am one of those. They did very well in those days. Proper care of oneself and nutritious foods will contribute to less infant deaths, if none at all and healthy babies.