Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member.

Maternal, newborn, and child health remains a top international development priority for our government. We are committed to working with Canadian and international partners towards the goal of ending the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns, and young children.

I would like to highlight that our government is ensuring that moms in Canada get the support they need. Each and every year we invest $27 million in the Canada prenatal nutrition program, an important initiative that seeks to improve the health and well-being of pregnant women, new mothers, and babies. It provides 59,000 new moms in over 2,000 communities with important nutritional and health information across Canada. We also provide over $2.4 billion each and every year for aboriginal health, including access to midwife services and prenatal care.

Through Canada's leadership, global attention has been drawn to this issue. In June 2010, under our Prime Minister's leadership, the G8 launched the Muskoka initiative on maternal, newborn, and child health with the aim of saving the lives of mothers, newborns, and children. As part of this initiative, Canada committed $2.85 billion between 2010 and 2015 to help women and children in the world's poorest countries.

Midwifery training and service provision is also a key component of our government's support through the G8 Muskoka initiative.

For example, through the strengthening midwifery services in South Sudan project, we are providing support to train midwives and other health workers at four national health training institutes across the country. A total of 540 health workers are expected to graduate during the project, including 315 midwives.

Maternal mortality is estimated at 2,000 for every 100,000 live births in South Sudan. The midwives Canada is helping to train will be vital in reducing maternal and infant mortality. More than 20,000 babies are expected to be born in the hands of a midwife or a midwifery student over the course of this particular project.

Another example points to Afghanistan, which currently has one of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the world. In addition to all of the other challenges faced by women in Afghanistan, 50 women die every day in Afghanistan from complications related to pregnancy. Dedicated delivery or examination rooms are scarce, and trained health care professionals can be hard to find.

I am pleased to say that we are working in partnership with the Afghan government, the United Nations, and non-governmental organization partners to train midwives and establish 49 family health houses in the province of Daikundi. Each family health house has a delivery room and an examination room in which a trained community midwife can safely work. Midwives in these communities will be trained not only to provide maternal and essential newborn care services but also important health information and immunization services. These centres will be equipped to provide health care services for up to 4,000 people.

Our government has also supported a project to reconstruct Haiti's national school of midwifery and local maternity clinics. Each new maternity clinic has two certified midwives and aims to provide increased access to qualified, preventative, and basic emergency obstetric and neonatal services to approximately 230,000 women and girls affected by the earthquake, including 25,000 pregnant women.

Finally, as part of its commitment to the Muskoka initiative for maternal, newborn, and child health, Canada has partnered with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Population Fund in support of the project for accelerating the reduction of maternal and newborn mortality, a five-year, $21 million initiative. This project has assisted 15 Nigerian states and the federal capital territory to strengthen the delivery of key maternal, newborn, and child health services. It seeks to ensure that health workers have the skills, equipment, supplies, and medicines to provide care.

Since 2010, the project has achieved impressive results, including the training of 248 nurse-midwives to provide life-saving care to an estimated 100,000 pregnant women, and 280 community health extension workers have also been trained and equipped to provide community-based newborn care.

These are but a few of the numerous examples of the work that Canada is undertaking internationally.

Thanks in large part to the Muskoka initiative in 2010 and subsequent global action, maternal mortality rates are declining and millions more children are celebrating their fifth birthdays. Access to health care and nutrition is up, and millions of lives continue to be saved each and every year.

This important work will continue. This government will seek continued progress toward ensuring that the nearly 40 million women internationally who give birth without trained help receive skilled care, decreasing the risk of death and disability both to the mother and the newborn. In May of 2014, the Prime Minister hosted the Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach summit. At the summit, Canada committed $3.5 billion in support for the period of 2015 to 2020 and renewed global momentum to advance maternal, newborn, and child health as a global priority beyond 2015. Canada will continue to work with its country partners to fill system gaps by investing in improved service delivery at the local level, training more health workers, and increasing access to adequately equipped local health facilities.

Since 1991, the International Day of the Midwife has been recognized on May 5 by organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the importance of the role midwives play and the care they provide. Our government believes that all mothers, newborns, and children in Canada or anywhere in the world have the right to be healthy and safe. The declaration of a national day of the midwife would further demonstrate Canada's commitment to maternal care on the international stage. I would like to offer our government's support for Bill C-608, which would increase awareness of the contributions that midwives make in improving the health and well-being of women and their families, both domestically and internationally. I am pleased to support this initiative.

A national day of the midwife will certainly help to increase awareness of the value of this important profession in providing maternal care services to women and their families, both domestically and internationally. Our government will support Bill C-608, which seeks to designate May 5 each and every year as the national day of the midwife.

Eve Adams

Transcript

Private Members' Business

Discussions (0)