Vietnam recorded 86 deaths from obstetric complications during giving births in 2012, rising by 17% from a year earlier, according to Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien.The minister released the figure at a meeting in Hanoi on Jan 24 to review the healthcare sector’s development last year and launch its tasks for 2013.Last year, the rate of obstetric complications per 1,000 births was 2.8, showing a slight on-year increase of 3.7%.Ms. Tien said that obstetric complications are rising at an alarming level, adding that obstetrics has the highest number of fatalities among wards in the health sector, attributing low awareness of health risks among pregnant women during pregnancy to the situation.The number of obstetric complication cases rose to 4,270 in 2012 from 3,191 in 2011 and 2,811 in 2010, she added. Such deaths have triggered high public concern over birth safety amid falling ethic and irresponsibility on the part of healthcare workers.To solve the situation, the United Nations (UN) has pledged to help Vietnam improve the quality of reproductive healthcare services in a move to better medical care for local women.Vietnam, which is one of the nations worldwide with the highest maternal death rates, aims to cut the death rate to 58.3 per 100,000 births by 2020 from the current rate of 75/100,000. At the meeting, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged the health sector to take more drastic measures to ease overloaded hospitals and implement a nationwide health insurance program and reform administrative procedures in the sector as well as address gender imbalance and improve public awareness of family planning and disease prevention. (Thanh Nien – Young People Jan 25 p2)
