Remember when our kaptaan had made history with a phenomenal emphasis on maternal health in his inaugural speech? Amid the hullabaloo of those jumping up and down at the historic decline in Pakistan’s maternal mortality rate (from 276 to 178 per 100,000) the very next year, it would be worth a while to glance at the disappointing statistics released by the Punjab government. A thousand pregnant women and over 88,000 children under the age of five died in only one province in 2021 alone.
The same province is also being governed by a party that loves to strike the right notes with its emphatic talk of investing in the right corners. And the same province, which had, only a while ago, made headlines for its considerable improvement in women’s access to healthcare services and the resultant maternal health. That such unimaginably high numbers reflect poorly on the state of health units, especially in rural areas, is an understatement.
The country’s heartland losing over 62,000 newborns in an age where strong education and health has made stillbirths a largely avoidable phenomenon is no small deal. Since most of the country believes in a “what will be, will be” disposition when it comes to modern contraception, simply hauling the state over the coals for all doom and gloom is unfair.
Ours is a nation that takes great pride in its over 3.8 million unintended pregnancies without wasting a moment on the toll they may take on women’s bodies or the disasters they would definitely spell for the children being born. But when the going gets tough, the tough better get going. If couples do not wish to bother themselves with the “discomforting” subject of family planning, the government needs to force them to listen.
Just as crucial is the need to build on basic healthcare so that women who do approach institutions get a chance at living. Risking them with serious infections due to poor quality of equipment and unnecessary c-sections has been allowed to run amok for quite some time now. It wasn’t long ago when a rampant shortage of qualified medical staff in the rural areas resulted in paramedics tending to women who called on the health centres. There is a clear need to put a stop to the skyrocketing number of babies being born but let’s try to save those who have a chance at coming into this world.
