Lubango – Nineteen health units in the provinces of Huíla and Huambo are providing better services to pregnant women and newborns, based on a program that results from support from the Sofia Feldman Hospital, in Brazil, and the cooperation of primary health care in Japan, which also seeks to prevent home births.
The program lasts four years and was initialed in September 2023, between the government of Angola and the Ministries of Health of Japan and Brazil, with the aim of further guaranteeing the quality of prenatal consultations and ensuring safe births in hospitals.
Speaking this Monday to ANGOP, the chief advisor of Japanese Cooperation for the execution of humanization projects in health, Toro Sadamori, who is visiting Huíla, stated that the implementation covers nine municipalities in the province of Huambo and an equal number in Huíla.
He made it known that in the case of Huíla, four health units were identified in Lubango, two in Matala and three in Cacula, which are being equipped with basic consultation and observation materials, with the aim of promoting good indicators of primary health care.
The objective, according to the source, is to reinforce the humanization of childbirth with the Brazilian and Japanese governments taking action, as well as strengthening family planning and providing solutions with “indispensable” tools, that is, also advocating with health experts to promote the intention.
He mentioned that one of the challenges that is being achieved is the improvement of childbirth, because to this day many Angolan women still give birth at home, which carries risks, hence the importance of this action to improve care in hospitals, which is an incentive for the search for specialized assistance, “safer and more comfortable”.
Along the same lines, the director of the provincial health office of Huíla, Paulo Luvangamo, said it is a project with “high importance”, given the impact it provides to primary health care policies for women.
He recalled that the lack of information about the need to have babies in a health unit with adequate equipment is a situation that poses several risks to mothers and children.
He also highlited that in 2023, Huíla registered a total of 42 thousand births, 70% of which were carried out by traditional midwives, at home.
He reinforced that the project to humanize primary health care has a positive impact on care for women and newborns.
JT/MS/CF/jmc
