Topic: Reducing Infant Mortality
Country: Panama
Delegate Name: Courtney Clay
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Panama position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Infant mortality has consistently been a problem worldwide for decades. In particular, smaller nations with many indigenous towns have struggled with high rates of infant mortality. In 2003, Panama’s infant mortality rate was at 21.44 deaths per 1000 live births. Panama’s limited health care system and high levels of poverty gave rise to the infant mortality rate. They are ranked the 134th country among 224 counties with the highest infant mortality rate. However, Panama has been proactive in decreasing the infant mortality since 2000, in 2015, it is at 11.07 deaths per 1000 live births. Since 2008, Panama has had a partnership with Salud Mesoamérica. This foundation has allowed for a major decrease in infant mortality, and a major increase in delivery care, pre and postpartum care, family planning, and availability of 24/7 nurses and doctors. Panama’s government working in alliance with the Salud Mesoamérica foundation has so far received more than US$1,714,286. The money has been used for antenatal and postnatal care in basic attention units and increased the the availability of inputs and equipment for delivery care by facility. The US along with counties with the financial availability and power to help countries struggling with infant mortality, need to suggest the implementation of these programs into more countries similar to Panama, struggling with infant mortality rates. The UN is aware of the Salud Mesoamérica actions but is not directly working with the private initiative yet. The UN should be responsible for distributing these funds, they should take the money and distribute it among the countries in need of it. The UN needs to not just give handouts to the governments though, the UN should solely be responsible for the money in order to prevent corruption. They should try to work with private initiatives to gain money to distribute. The UN needs to also make sure the money gets evenly distributed among the country in which the money was designated. Previously, Panama specifically has had issues with infant mortality rates in indigenous tribes almost double the rate of urban cities. Panama has unequally distributed their funds to help the more populated cities rather than the smaller towns, struggling even more with infant mortality. Often times, most of the money devoted to infant mortality rates in a country goes straight to the urban cities, whereas it needs to be distributed nationwide. Rural areas are most in need of the funds. Indigenous people in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, and Uruguay are crying out for help. To fix this problem, UN officials in the security council.should be responsible for following up with a significant decrease in infant mortality rates of different areas across the country, not just the main cities. The funds needed for these programs should be granted by private foundations, such as the Salud Mesoamérica Foundation, or the Henry J. Kaiser foundation. The UN does not necessarily need to take funding from other programs, but instead try to raise more funds in each country in private institutions.
Next, Panama need to work on educating and encouraging breastfeeding along with increasing health care workers to be present among deliveries of children. Breastfeeding does not only help keep a baby healthy, it also can cut down healthcare costs. On average $4 billion a year could be saved in healthcare costs on, and $93 million a month in lower food-package costs if all women nursed their babies. Panama has attempted to raise the rates of breastfeeding in their country, however they have struggled to actively increase the rate of breastfeeding. They currently have about 27.5% of mothers who breastfeed for less than 6 months, and a small 6.3% of mothers that breastfeed longer than 6 months. It is necessary that changes are made to increase the percentage of mothers that breastfeed longer than 6 months. One solution Panama has thought of is to educate the mothers but has never acted on the idea. In order to do this, Panama is going to need a little more money from the Salud Mesoamérica foundation. From there, they can work to hold workshops in each town, including smaller northeastern towns, to educate mothers on the importance of breastfeeding. We can take Panama’s ideas worldwide to help other countries with even higher infant mortality, such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Chad.
Panama believes that a emphasis should be put on sending health workers to assist births at home rather than at healthcare facilities. We need to increase this effort worldwide. Some countries have been able to implement this idea, but we need to do this in every country. Due to the distance some citizens have from their house to a healthcare facility, it would be unreasonable to assume every citizen would be able to make it to a health care facility if the closest facility is more than a hour away. Instead, Panama believes the emphasis should be on health care workers. This will save Panama money and increase births with a healthcare worker present. Panama thinks we should assign a certain amount of health care workers to each city or town in Panama. For the smaller towns, we can have a smaller amount of workers, and for larger towns, we can have a larger number of health care workers. In the smaller towns, this would easily allow access to a at home health care worker for the birth of a child, instead of having to build a whole new health care facility. For Panama, this plan is perfect because it not only helps the larger towns in Panama, but it also can assist those giving births in the outskirt small towns in Panama.
