Slamet Susanto and Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta/Bandarlampung | Mon, 03/08/2010 9:36 AM
A lack of awareness and limited numbers of specialists are responsible for the country’s high maternal mortality rate, especially in Yogyakarta and Riau, says the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN).
BKKBN chief Sugiri Syarief said the majority of maternal deaths were caused by hemorrhaging (30 percent) and eclampsia (25 percent).
The rest, he added, were caused by infection, postpartum complications, abortion and problems during delivery.
He added the current maternal mortality rate had dropped to 228 deaths per 100,000 live births. In 2003, there were 307 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
“However, the current rate is still far from the Millennium Development Goal [MDG] target of 125 deaths per 100,000 live births,” he said during a seminar at Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University.
“Relevant agencies, the private sector and the community must work hard.
“Many parties are pessimistic that Indonesia will reach its MDG’s.
I’m convinced that Indonesia’s MDG for maternal deaths can be reached provided the community gets involved.”
Sugiri said the government had set a target to reduce the maternal mortality rate to 102 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015.
The infant mortality rate has decreased over the past five years, with the current rate at 34 deaths per 1,000 live births.
The reduction in the infant mortality rate has been attributed to the success of immunization and infection treatments.
However, Sugiri said, the high mortality rate would be difficult to curb considering the disproportionate number of obstetricians and gynecologists to the rate of population growth.
Indonesian Obstetrician and Gynecologists Association chairman Soegiarto Soebijanto, said the
current ratio of obstetric and gynecology specialists was 1:26,000 people.
“The ratio is still far from the ideal of 1:200 people,” he said in Pekanbaru, Riau.
“Indonesia still lags far behind other Southeast Asian countries in terms of the number of specialists, such as the Philippines, which has reached a ratio of 1:2,000.”
He added the discrepancy would be hard to combat in the short term due to the low levels of obstetric and gynecology programs at universities in the region.
Soegiarto said that only 14 state universities in Indonesia currently offered such programs, which produced around 200 such specialists per year.
He estimated the central government would immediately set up more obstetric and gynecology programs in other state universities.
Soegiarto also said that Indonesia only had 2,350 such specialists, blaming the limited number on the expensive cost of education.
“The four-year education program costs at least Rp 500 million [US$54,347]. This certainly discourages students,” he said.
