UN POPULATION FUND DISTRIBUTES EMERGENCY HOME DELIVERY KITS IN EAST TIMOR
Press Release
POP/747
UN POPULATION FUND DISTRIBUTES EMERGENCY HOME DELIVERY KITS IN EAST TIMOR
19991116NEW YORK, 16 November (UNFPA) -- The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is distributing emergency home delivery kits to mothers in East Timor, where representatives say there is little or no maternity care currently available. The Fund is also providing delivery supplies to local clinics and hospitals.
The delivery kits provide the most basic supplies needed to perform a clean, safe delivery at home. These include soap, plastic sheeting, razor blades for cutting umbilical cords, pictorial instruction sheets, and cotton cloths to wrap newborn babies. An estimated 85 per cent of babies in East Timor are delivered at home; 60 per cent of these home deliveries are not attended by trained health personnel.
The supplies are being given out at health centres and food distribution points. Virtually every single medical facility has been damaged or destroyed, said Pamela DeLargy of UNFPAs Emergency Relief Operations, speaking from Dili. There are absolutely no supplies, not even soap for midwives to wash their hands; it's unbelievable.
UNFPAs supplies, enough to serve a population of 400,000 people for three months, arrived in the regions capital, Dili, last week. They are being distributed by a number of non-governmental organizations as part of a coordinated United Nations relief effort.
It is awful to think that after all they have been experienced in the last months, women and babies in East Timor are now dying for lack of the simplest materials, said Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of UNFPA. People often forget that, in the midst of conflict, women still need prenatal, post-natal and delivery care. Without skilled help, giving birth without basic equipment can be a matter of life or death for these women and their babies.
Other UNFPA supplies are intended for use at local health centres and clinics by trained midwives and doctors to carry out normal
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deliveries, to perform sutures under local anesthesia, and to stabilize potentially dangerous conditions, such as hemorrhage, before patients are transferred to a larger medical centre.
East Timors maternal mortality rate -- the number of women who die from pregnancy-related causes -- is among the highest in the world. In a study conducted earlier this year by Columbia University in New York, it was estimated at 830 per 100,000 live births. Women often die due to lack of transport to clinics.
Almost every village in East Timor has a midwife, but they cant support deliveries properly when they lack even the most basic equipment, said Ms. DeLargy. Many hospitals were completely sacked when the militia left. In some places, even the roof and walls are missing.
Nurses and women have told me that a lot of women had miscarriages during the fighting when they fled into the mountains, she added. We can expect to see an increase in miscarriages as a result of the trauma experienced during the fighting.
For more information or interviews please contact: William A. Ryan, UNFPA New York, tel. 212-297-5279, e-mail, ryanw@unfpa.org; or Abubakar Dungus, UNFPA New York, tel. 212-297-5031, e-mail,.dungus@unfpa.org
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