The Issues

Every day 1500 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications and just under twenty-five thousand children under the age of five die from diarrhea, pneumonia, and other preventable diseases. Measures to preempt these complications and illnesses exist in abundance, but are often unavailable in communities off the beaten path. Millions of mothers and children all over the world lack access to basic primary healthcare services, often because the national health systems in developing countries are under-resourced or poorly planned. And, where hospitals and medical facilities do exist they are often overcrowded and dilapidated, lacking the medicine, equipment and health professionals they need to provide quality care and treatment.

The challenge is not one of advanced skill levels or resource supply - the global health community has the tools to solve primary care and treatment problems. The challenge is to bridge the gap between the solutions and the people who need them with financially sustainable interventions. For this we need better management and resource allocation to strengthen and extend the primary care delivery system.

The Millennium Developmnet Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 detail the health imperative of global maternal and pediatric well-being. Read more about the MDGs >