Dodoma — DEPUTY Minister of Health, Florence Samizi has said the Tanzanian government has continued to take various strategic steps to strengthen the health of pregnant women and children in the country, including increasing service infrastructure, strengthening emergency services during childbirth, as well as improving newborn services with the aim of reducing maternal and child mortality.
Dr Samizi said this today in parliament in Dodoma while responding to a question by Esther Edwin Maleko on behalf of the Minister of Health, Mohamed Mchengerwa, regarding the Government's strategy to strengthen health services for pregnant women and children.
Explaining the steps being taken, he said the Government has continued to invest in improving the infrastructure for providing health services by building emergency care centers for pregnant women and newborns (CEmONC), in parallel with establishing special wards for newborns and patients, where so far a total of 438 wards have been established compared to only 14 wards that existed in 2018.
In addition, the government has begun the construction of 37 special care units for newborns who need special care (NICU) in regions and councils with a large number of newborns, a move aimed at improving services and increasing the chances of newborns surviving.
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Dr Samizi said that in enhancing the quality of services, the Government has continued to build the capacity of health care providers where a total of 18,929 staff have been trained in emergency surgical services, operating room management as well as the provision of safe sedation and anesthesia.
Also, the government has continued to improve the availability of medical equipment for newborn, pregnant, and postpartum care to ensure quality services are available at various health centres and hospitals in the country.
In line with that, Dr Samizi said the Government continues to strengthen preventive services by ensuring that vaccines and vaccination equipment are available at all times according to needs, while midwifery services continue to be emphasized through the use of labor charts and improvements to delivery rooms to facilitate maternity care.
