Maternal And Infant Improvement Health Program
International community sets values/index of citizen health improvement target in Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). One of MDGs’ focuses of attention is Maternal Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH), or called AKI (Maternal Mortality Rate) and AKB (Infant Mortality Rate). MDGs targets 115/100,000 rate in 2015, however, AKI in Bandung City in 2005 was 225/100,000 pregnant women. This rate is far below national target.
Concern over the high AKI of Bandung City, BIGS cooperated with Health Service Program (HSP-USAID) on continuous activity on improvement of mothers, infants and children health. This activity carried out for 1.5 year has involved cooperation from various parties. BIGS initiated a coalition of health stakeholders, consists of city-level Health Service, advocacy NGOs (BIGS, Pamitran, Aliansi Pita Putih, Koalisi Jabar Sehat, WISE, Forum Rembug Bandung Sehat), professional organization (midwife association, doctor association, pediatrics association, free maternity house of Dompet Dhuafa Republika, free maternity house of Rumah Zakat Indonesia).
This activity was started with focused group discussion (FGD) that studied health budget for maternity women and children and tracked maternal mortality cases in Bandung City. This study became input for Workshop for Health Stakeholders of Bandung City.
This multi stakeholder workshop discussed strategic issues on low access and health service (such as giving birth) warranty of poor families. This workshop produced recommendation on various issues of maternity and infant health, such as: the need of health service warranty for the poor, health service tariff standard, budget allocation increase, improvement of health service information system in Bandung City, and legal protection, namely local regulations (Perda) and mayor regulation (Perwal), that accommodate efforts of reducing AKI and AKB.
To support advocacy effort, Health Coalition conducted public campaign by activity of Ante Natal Care (ANC) 1000 Ibu Hamil (free ANC for 1000 pregnant women). This activity aimed at making AKI and AKB alleviation popular issue in Bandung City and West Java Province, while utilizing regional head election moments in West Java and Bandung City.
This activity included free pregnancy exam and public discussion that involved health institutions of Bandung City. The ANC 1000 Ibu Hamil activity successfully promoted AKI and AKB issue into one of important agenda; that all policy-makers of Bandung City should put attention to, now that media coverage brought it up. In turn, the strengthened AKI and AKB issue has made it included in Local Regulation on Health System of Bandung City. It is an important legal protection for MNCH issue in Bandung City.