While we have seen global maternal deaths drop by 44% since
1990, women are still dying from preventable causes during pregnancy and
childbirth – and not just in low and middle-income countries that lack
resources. Even in high-income countries, there are women who face a much
higher risk of death, or grave injury because they are poor, migrants,
refugees, minorities or from indigenous populations.
In Canada, indigenous women are twice as likely as members
of the general population to die in the weeks before or after delivering a
baby. The indigenous infant mortality rate is also two to four times higher
than the general population.
MSD for Mothers and MSD Canada
Inc. recently teamed up to launch
a very exciting program in Toronto to address this disparity in
maternal and child health. Called "Kind Faces, Sharing Places," the
Toronto project is a unique community-hospital-university-private sector
partnership, led by indigenous health professionals, researchers and community
leaders. It focuses on the patient, and on providing culturally-sensitive,
individualized, wraparound support.
"The hope is that we will be able to demonstrate
something that is sustainable, and that other levels of government in the
country, including the federal government, will decide to pick it up and run
with it," says Ani Armenian, Corporate Communications Manager for MSD in
Canada who was instrumental to getting this project going. Read more here
News credit: MSDformothers
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