New York- The Government of Nepal is committed to continue the implementation of free delivery service, which has directly benefitted over 350,000 mothers since its implementation, two years ago.

Statement by Right Honorable Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, Prime Minister and the Leader of Nepalese delegation to the 66th UNGA, at the High-level event “Every Women, Every Child” hosted by UN Secretary-General
New York, 20 September 2011


Mr. Secretary-General
Her Majesty Queen Rania
Heads of State and heads of government
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen

I am very pleased and honored to be here in this august gathering, sharing the experiences from Nepal. Following the historic political transformation in my country, in 2006, the Interim Constitution of Nepal enshrined health as human rights of the people, and has also ensured reproductive rights. I am so happy and proud to state that Nepal is on track for both MDGs 4 and 5. Maternal Mortality Ratio has declined by an impressive 49% and childhood mortality by equally impressive 54% in the last 15 years.  Fertility has dropped from 4.6 children per woman in 1996 to 2.6 in 2011.  In acknowledgement of our successes, Nepal received the MDG 5 award from the United Nations last year.  I am pleased to state that Nepal also reaffirmed its  commitments  to MDG 4 and 5 through United Nations Secretary General’s Global Action Plan for Women’s and Children’s Health, in September, last year.

Nepal committed to recruit, train and deploy 10,000 additional skilled birth attendants within 5 years, to expand the coverage of free maternity and new born care programs, to double the coverage of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programs and to reduce unmet need for family planning to 18 %. To improve the access to maternity services, women who deliver in health facilities get support for the travel costs, and health workers are provided cash incentives to attend births.

The Government of Nepal is committed to continue the implementation of free delivery service, which has directly benefitted over 350,000 mothers since its implementation, two years ago.

The Government of Nepal is investing in the expansion of birthing centers, Basic Essential Obstetric Care (BEOC) and Comprehensive Essential Obstetric Care (CEOC) sites, and partnering with the private/ NGO sector to improve access to services to women living in more remote districts and those who are marginalized.

The Skilled Birth Attendant Policy was endorsed in 2006 which specifically identifies the importance of skilled birth attendance at every birth, and embodies the government’s commitment to training and deploying doctors and nurses/midwives with required skills across the country.

In addition, in order to retain doctors in their positions, particularly in the remote and the rural districts the Government has adopted a policy of giving them incentives in the form of preferential admission to the graduate courses if they serve for two years in the remote districts. Also, doctors who have graduated under the scholarship schemes are required to serve for two years in the positions deputed by the government. These policies have helped fulfill the gap of human resource to a large extent.

To meet the perennial problem of shortage of health human resource, Nepal has also adopted a very effective policy of “task shifting” under which Nurses have been trained to provide BEOC services, including reproductive health service. Paramedical staffs have been trained as anesthetic assistants, and many of them are providing spinal anesthesia for caesarean section.

The Government of Nepal is committed to increasing the budget to the Ministry of Health and Population as it has done so from the past several years. However, inadequacy of resources has posed a significant challenge to scale up the safe motherhood and newborn care programs to cater to the needs of the population, as desired. We welcome joining hands with international community including United Nations system to fulfill resources gap.

I thank you !

Dr. Baburam Bhattarai
Prime Minister of Nepal

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