Banner image: 40-day-old Muhammad was carried by his cousin to the Mother and Child Healthcare Centre for check up
According to UNICEF, neonatal mortality rate stands at 46 deaths per 1,000 births, and 81 in every 1,000 children do not live past their 5th birthday in Pakistan. 178 of every 100,000 pregnant mothers die during or after delivery. These numbers tell us that surviving and living healthily is a challenge to Pakistani children and mothers.
Kohistan is one of Pakistan’s most impoverished districts. While it is highly vulnerable to disasters such as earthquake and flooding, residents are vulnerable to disease, chronic malnourishment, and health complications due to the remoteness of the region and lack of proximate or adequate health facilities. In 2015, only 12 functional and basic health units were serving a population of 645,000.
Our partner Pak Mission Society (PMS) established a Mother and Child Healthcare Centre in 2012 to address the immediate health needs of communities and to ensure long term development in community’s health awareness.
Last year, we began our support for the Mother and Child Healthcare Project to improve health and well-being of poor pregnant and/or lactating women, infants, and children through the Centre. The project supports medical camps in schools and villages, radio broadcast on breastfeeding and child feeding, giving post-scenario care for miscarriages and abortions, capacity training for medical staff, awareness raising health and hygiene sessions, vaccination, and formation of 12 Village Health Committees. We sincerely hope that the Centre and project would help improve the health and life of mothers and children of the community. We wish them health!
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us good health and a place with well-established health facilities to live in. We know that all these blessings are not for granted. Therefore, we treasure our health and our home.
We would like to lift up Kohistan and Pakistan to You. May You protect the lives and health of mothers and children that they are able to receive proper and immediate healthcare. We also pray for PMS. Lord, guard their work and ministry that they can be the salt and light in this poor community. We see that the needs are huge in this community, especially mothers and children. May You raise up more people and health professionals to serve them. Amen.