Parliamentarians Take Action for Maternal and Newborn Health

The Hague, The Netherlands, 26-28 November 2008

TALKING POINTS

Senator Dan SABĂU

                              ROMANIA

Perspectives from developing and developed countries:

Parliamentarians making a change

Madam Chair,

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for giving me the floor.

I am most honored to attend this conference as a guest of our Dutch colleagues.

And I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Madam Chair, for this initiative and your hospitality. 

My name is Dan SABĂU, I am the Chairman of the Sub-Committee for Population and Development of the Senate of Romania.

The Sub-Committee was set up one year ago with a view to integrating the population and development issues into throughout parliamentary work.

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The issue of maternal and newborn health is topical and at the same time challenging for us parliamentarians from both developed and developing countries.

In our case, the parliamentary approach is twofold.

On one hand, despite major progress in access to reproductive and sexual health services, we are still facing in Romania a constant number of annual deaths caused by complications during pregnancy or child delivery.

Finding remedies to this situation requires ongoing attention and was in fact one of the reasons why we set up a parliamentary body to deal with population and development issues.     

On the other hand, we have new parliamentary responsibilities resulting from Romania’s status of emerging aid donor.

Last year, our development cooperation policy became operational. Health, more precisely reproductive health and the fight against HIV/AIDS, are priority areas in which we are able and ready to offer assistance.  

Therefore, we need to learn about ways of involving parliament in the drawing up and monitoring of health-related aid activities.

From this perspective, our participation in this meeting and in similar activities such as those under the aegis of the European Parliamentary Forum for Population and Development and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, is very useful.

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With your permission, I will add some comments on concrete actions we can take as members of Parliament, by means of capitalizing on the specific expertise and resources we have in our constituencies.

My constituency – Sibiu, for example, was the first in Romania where university studies for midwifery were organized. This specialization was introduced in 2003 within the Faculty of Medicine and consists in a four-year study program, finalized with a university degree.

We have accumulated a good experience so far and the professional standard of our graduates is well recognized throughout the European Union.

In a very pragmatic approach, what we could do, in cooperation with colleagues from countries lacking midwifery formation, is to assess the needs and promote, through parliamentary partnerships, bilateral training programs for the communities most in need.

Such programs could take various forms.

A first option might be to train midwifery trainers. This could be carried out in our Faculty, as well as in the beneficiary countries, by Romanian teams comprising midwives and physicians.

In fact, what I want to say is that major initiatives, such as the new project of UNFPA and the International Confederation of Midwives for midwifery training in developing countries, can be enhanced through bilateral partnerships that we, parliamentarians, have the means to encourage and support.     

Also, with respect to midwifery and the urgent need to find the right balance between numbers and skills, I will share with you a personal opinion, this time in capacity as physician.        

In my view, one of the solutions – probably the second best - to cope with the huge demand of trained midwives is to put in place an intermediary level of instruction similar to the one of paramedics.

Such paraprofessional training should target primarily community-based women known to be skilled in assisting with deliveries.       

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Dear colleagues,

Our concrete tasks in advancing MDGs 4 and 5 may differ from one country to another. Nevertheless, they are equally important and mutually reinforcing.

In this regard, the initiative of a roadmap for parliamentary action is most welcomed. In my view, the roadmap should include a strong dimension of inter-parliamentary cooperation as a means to develop concrete activities and enhance capacity building.

I mean by this bilateral exchanges between parliamentarians and specialized parliamentary bodies; but also a more structured partnership between the IPU and the various inter-parliamentary forums having a good expertise in population and development issues, such as the EPF.  

Thank you.