The Palestinian Ministry of Health, in partnership with UNFPA Palestine CO, held the Third National Annual Health Conference under the theme maternal mortality with the slogan “Let's work together so that no woman dies while giving life”, in Ramallah on 4 May 2011. The Conference highlighted the problem of maternal deaths in Palestine, based on the groundbreaking 2008-2009 maternal mortality report that resulted from the partnership between MOH and UNFPA, and gave concrete recommendations into a national plan to reduce maternal mortality by half by 2015, in line with MDG5.
H.E. the Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad said in his opening statement: “Maternal mortality in Palestine is 32 per 100, 000 live births, and while this figure is low in comparison with other developing countries, this should be seen as alarming in the context of Palestine; the Palestinian Authority should work on reaching levels similar to those in the developed world.” He added: “The Palestinian National Authority is determined to continue to make every possible effort to improve and enhance quality of health care services.”
The Minister of Health, Dr. Fathi Abu Moghli, said: “The Conference must be a milestone that marks the dedicated and hard work towards achieving significant reduction in maternal mortality, which should not be tolerated given the infrastructure, manpower and knowledge that the healthcare in Palestine has”. He added “We must accept the challenge and achieve the MDG5 objective as well as to reduce infant mortality rate, as these two goals are interlinked”.
Ms. Barbara Piazza-Georgi, UNFPA Representative, in her remarks, commended the successful work already accomplished, and focusing on what still needs to be done, she emphasized the importance of health systems approach to achieve the objective of significant reduction of maternal mortality in Palestine.
