Improving the quality of care for reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health in South-East Asia

Overview

Impressive progress has been made in the South-East-Asia Region in reducing child and maternal mortality in the last two decades with significant improvement in reproductive health outcomes, too. Several countries of our Region are on track for achieving Millennium Development Goals 4-5. Member States are also progressively expanding implementation of adolescentfriendly health services.

While there has been progressive improvement in the coverage of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health services, there is evidence that effective lifesaving interventions are often of sub-optimal quality. A number of studies over the past years have documented the poor quality of care provided to neonates and children, as well as deficiencies in maternal health care, for both routine and emergency services. Likewise, assessment of adolescents / youth- friendly health services in several countries have identified gaps in the quality of care provided.

Poor quality is found to be responsible for low utilization of health-care services by the population leading to inadequate progress towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5 in some countries. Universal Health coverage also emphasizes good quality of health care in addition to expanded availability of essential services.