From a Medical Research Council report on children's health issues in South Africa:
Every year almost 23,000 South African babies die in their first month of life, yet one in five of these deaths could be avoided with better education, and relatively inexpensive and easily implemented changes in healthcare, says a new study by the Medical Research Council (MRC).
“The bad news is that, according to the report, ‘one in five deaths could have been clearly avoided’, and inequalities are also highlighted, with avoidable deaths being twice as common in rural areas,” said Joy Lawn, Senior Policy and Research Advisor at Saving Newborn Lives, a programme run by Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation for children's rights, in the foreword to the report.
“The good news is that these deaths are not complex or expensive to prevent – improving the quality of care during childbirth is a top priority that would also save mothers’ lives and reduce long-term disabilities in children,” Lawn commented.
This latter news, of course, is what South Africans must work to bring to fruition. These issues are tied in with questions of opportunity and access that South Africa also struggles to address.
