Neonatal Interventions in Rural Nepal

UNICEF correspondent Elizabeth Kiem reports on women health volunteers being empowered to provide neonatal interventions in remote parts of Nepal.

Neonatal Interventions in Rural Nepal Elizabeth Cimb: Matura Shahi is a community health volunteer in the far western district of Nepal. She’s one of nearly 50,000 women who work as health volunteers across Nepal; these women have provided primary care at the community level for the past two decades. They’re role has been instrumental in making national health campaign successful. Improved coverage of polio immunization, vitamin A supplements and de-worming has helped Nepal reduce by 2/3 the mortality rate of children under five. Peter Salama: This center that work in Nepal has been around the training of village health workers, predominantly women who’ve been trained a very large numbers of her by lodge from the communities where they grew up and they are empowered to deliver a set of simple but life saving interventions. Elizabeth Cimb: But Nepal still needs to work hard to stay on track for achieving the millennium development goals. Too many babies are dying in Nepal, most of them, less than a month old. Dr. Yashovardhan Pradhan: If you go through our latest 2006 unit debts occupying more than 60% among infant mortality, so we should focus ourselves in the field of neonatal health. Elizabeth Cimb: As more than 80 out of every 100 births in Nepal take place in the home, that’s where neonatal interventions must be applied, so the government of Nepal with collaboration with partners like UNICEF is piloting a community based new born care program. Designed to help train volunteers like Matura to manage the most common causes of new born deaths, infection, birth asphyxia and hypothermia. This empowerment at the local level will go a long way to keeping Nepal on track towards achieving its millennium development goals. This is Elizabeth Cimb reporting for UNICEF television, unite for children.