Involve youth in drafting health strategy: Machel
The United Nations (UN) will be updating its strategy to reduce the deaths of women and children around the world.
To this end‚ it will partner with the heath department and The Partnership for Maternal‚ Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) to focus on improving adolescent health and maternal health in particular.
Consultations on the UN General-Secrtary’s Strategy on Women’s‚ Children’s and Adolescents’ Health are currently taking place with the department‚ the PMNCH and other stakeholders in Kempton Park on the East Rand.
According to the UN’s Every Women Every Child movement‚ 289000 women die every year during pregnancy and childbirth‚ while 2.1 million adolescents live with HIV globally.
SA’s health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and the chair of PMNCH‚ Graca Machel‚ were present at the consultation on Wednesday.
Machel emphasised how important it is to involve the youth in the drafting of the strategy to improve their own health.
“We need to bring young people to the centre. We need to create a pact with them and we need to understand what the needs of young people are and how to address young people‚” Machel said.
“Let us leave no one behind when it comes to women’s health‚ children’s health and adolescent health.”
Machel also stressed the importance of bringing all constituencies involving women and children together to discuss the strategies and its implementation.
“Implementation is the main game changer or else this strategy will remain a beautiful document.”
Motsoaledi said that one of the biggest problems in Africa is that the health systems are very weak “and as long as our health care systems are weak‚ we are not going to win”.
“You find that we come up with very good strategies but no strategy holds because of the weak systems.”
He also said this is the reason women and children are not receiving good health care.
Motsoaledi said that there has to be universal health coverage in order to make the strategy work.
“Why‚ every time African leaders are sick‚ do they head to Europe? Why can’t they be treated here on the continent?
“It is because they have no confidence in their own health care system and unless we take a decision that all of us as leaders we must be treated here‚ then it will never improve because those of us in power know that we have somewhere to go‚ then what about the women and children who have nowhere else to go?”.
Part of the department of health’s plan to improve health in young women is administering the HPV vaccine‚ which prevents cervical cancer‚ to 9-year-old girls in Grade 4.
– The Times, RDM News Wire
