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UN / TANZANIA MATERNAL HEALTH
STORY: UN / TANZANIA MATERNAL HEALTH
TRT: 2.17
SOURCE: UNTV / UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 2 OCTOBER 2012, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – UNTV – 2011, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
UNTV – 2 OCTOBER 2012, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, and Helen Agerup, head of the H&B Agerup Foundation taking seats at press conference
3. Wide shot, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jakaya Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania:
“A lot of ground has been covered and a lot has been achieved, but we need to scale up efforts, because still too many mothers and children continue to die or are at risk of losing their lives.”
5. Med shot, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and philanthropist:
“It’s easy to get capital once you’ve got a proven model that’s hard at the beginning, so I think that her foundation’s donation and Bloomberg Philanthropy’s donation hopefully will be just the beginning, and it would be wonderful if you saw the world turn out and dwarf what we’ve done so far with other monies, but using the model we think will work.”
7. Med shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City and philanthropist:
“Three hundred thousand women are going to die, and they’ve been doing this since time immemorial in giving birth. We just have to try new things and the practicality is that a lot of simple things can cure those things. Stop smoking – doesn’t cost you anything, saves money. You can stop overeating or change your diet – doesn’t cost anything. You can use, if you have to, a razor blade, a piece of string, and a little rubbing alcohol and save an awful lot of those three hundred thousand lives.”
9. Wide shot, journalists
FILE – UNICEF – 9 JUNE 2012, GARISSA, KENYA
10. Tilt up, woman and children to hut
FILE – UNICEF - 8, 9 MARCH 2012, TORIT, EASTERN EQUATORIA, SOUTH SUDAN
11. Med shot, pregnant women waiting to give birth
12. Close up, newborn baby
FILE – UNICEF - 03 AUGUST 2011, DAIKUNDI AFGHANISTAN
12. Wide shot, mother riding with baby on donkey
13. Various shots, midwife with pregnant woman
FILE – UNICEF – 9 JUNE 2012, GARISSA, KENYA
14. Med shot, woman in hospital on way to operating room
15. Med shot, doctor adjusting the light
16. Close up shot, doctor and nurse
17. Med shot, newly born baby handed to nurse
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters at UN headquarters today (2 October) that an innovative maternal health program in Tanzania he has helped fund could serve as a blueprint for global efforts to cut maternal deaths.
At a news conference also attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete reported that the program, which trains local health workers in remote locations to perform life-saving procedures such as caesarean section, has slashed the number of maternal deaths from bleeding and other complications. In one district, maternal deaths declined by 32 percent in less than two years.
But Kikwete said that even though much had been achieved, efforts needed to be scaled up because “still too many mothers and children continue to die or are at risk of losing their lives”.
Mayor Bloomberg announced that his Bloomberg Philanthropy foundation would renew its funding of the program for another three years, expecting to benefit at least 50,000 women. Together with the H&B Agerup Foundation, whose head Helen Agerup also attended the press conference, the commitment totals 15 million US dollars.
The hope was, he said, that the success of the program would attract additional funding from other sources that would “dwarf what we’ve done so far”, so that it could be replicated on a national and international level.
Bloomberg likened the “simple” interventions that could save many mothers’ lives to the solutions to two other big and preventable health hazards – smoking and obesity.
He said “Stop smoking – doesn’t cost you anything, saves money. You can stop overeating or change your diet – doesn’t cost anything. You can use, if you have to, a razor blade, a piece of string, and a little rubbing alcohol and save an awful lot” of the three hundred thousand women who die in childbirth every year according to UN figures.
According to Bloomberg Philanthropy, the maternal health program in Tanzania has trained more than 100 local non-physician clinicians including assistant medical officers and nurse midwives in the east African nation’s most isolated areas. More than one thousand babies have been delivered by c-section in villages where women previously had to travel several hours to receive care.
Reducing maternal deaths is one of the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Progress remains stubbornly slow towards the goal of reducing deaths by three-quarters from 1990 levels by the 2015 deadline.
Michael Bloomberg, on his third term as New York City mayor, is a businessman and one of the richest people in the United States with an estimated wealth of 25 billion dollars. His Bloomberg Philanthropy foundation has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to health, education, the arts and other charitable causes over the past years.
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