ASIA/CAMBODIA - Urgent need for healthcare specialists to address maternal deaths
Phnom Penh (Agenzia Fides) – There is one doctor or midwife for every 1,000 people in Cambodia, compared with two per 1,000 in Thailand, and 12 per 1,000 in Japan. The country must increase the number of trained health professionals to reduce its high maternal mortality rate. While 56 percent of births are attended by a health professional - up from 32 percent in 2000 - Cambodia is unlikely to meet its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing maternal mortality to 140 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015. With 540 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, Cambodia has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the region, after 660 per 100,000 births in Laos, according to the WHO. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 3/9/2010)
AFRICA/SENEGAL - Raising a child with disabilities, without suitable aid or facilities
Dakar (Agenzia Fides) – In Senegal many women refuse to take mentally disabled children on public transport; families hide children with mental or neurological disorders, and some parents disown them outright. According to the latest WHO global burden of disease statistics, from 2004, 13.4 million people in Africa had unipolar depressive disorders, 7.7 million epilepsy, 2.7 million bipolar affective disorder and 2.1 million schizophrenia. In Senegalese society it is quite difficult to have a child with a mental disorder. The prevailing belief is that it is a curse; it is difficult to get family and friends to accept such a child. Another common belief is that the mother was unfaithful in the marriage, and a child with such a condition is a punishment from God. There is not enough aid or facilities for these mentally disabled people. The only school for them in the country is the Education and Training Centre for the Mentally Disabled (CEFDI). The education ministry has no national statistics on the number of mentally handicapped children. In 2009 CEFDI had to turn away 54 of the 81 children who applied from all over the country because the facility could not accommodate any more new students. When registration for the 2010-11 academic year opened, 20 families came to register children in just two days. Senegal has five private institutions for mentally handicapped children – four in Dakar and one in the northern city of Saint Louis - but many families cannot afford them. CEFDI, which takes children with Down's syndrome, epilepsy, and a variety of other disorders, has two specialists and three other teachers, who have not been trained to teach mentally or neurologically disabled children, to educate 109 students from four to 20 years old. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 2/9/2010)
