Pledge on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in Humanitarian Emergencies

Actions taken:

Please find below areas in which the Canadian Red Cross has taken action to implement this pledge:

Supporting evidence-based decision making by Ministries of Health and other policy-makers by strengthening Health Management Information Systems (HMIS):

• • During Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, the Canadian Red Cross deployed an Emergency Field Hospital, and strengthened decision-making by providing information from our health information system directly to the Ministry of Health.  CRC has also developed a more robust field hospital Health Information System since this deployment.

Developing the skills of Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers to promote preventive and care-giving practices, in order to improve communities’ health, self-reliance and resilience to shocks:

• • In the Philippines, CRC has worked in partnership with the Philippines Red Cross to improve community resilience by reducing health and disaster risks, and increase local communities’ ability to respond. This project focuses on improving disaster risk reduction, disaster response, and reducing communicable and non-communicable diseases before and after disasters at a local level in Panay Island, Philippines.

• • In Mali, we have worked with the Mali Red Cross to train volunteers in communities residing more than 5 km away from a health facility in Community Based Health & First Aid as part of a maternal, newborn and child health project whereby volunteers support local Community Health Workers to deliver health education to promote preventative and caregiving practices to reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality in rural communities. Volunteers will be further trained on continuity of services and their roles in the event of humanitarian emergency, disaster or health epidemic.

• • In South Sudan, our current five year MNCH partnership with the South Sudan Red Cross is focused on training 1800 community health workers and home health promoters in integrated community case management (ICCM) and mother and child health promotion. Outreach teams, funded by this project, made up of a midwife, nurse, clinical officer and vaccinator have begun in January 2017. In February and March 2017 alone, these two teams have conducted over 5830 curative consultations focusing on MNCH, specifically vaccinations, ante-natal care, and childhood illnesses.

• • In China, our partnership with the Chinese Red Cross focuses on improving first aid training for volunteers and oral hygiene for women and children; improving their community health.

• • In Pakistan, we have worked with the Pakistan Red Crescent to submit a proposal to improve women’s access to health services by implementing Women’s Health Committees in Tharparkar region.

Enhancing health care workers’ ability to access mothers and children affected by humanitarian crises by advocating for the safety and security of patients and health care providers:

• • Through our public health and psychosocial support delegates we work with our partners to train local Red Cross volunteers and staff disease prevention, and psychosocial first aid. During our deployment to Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, we conducted three psychosocial first aid trainings.

Strengthening Canadian capacity to provide quality reproductive, maternal and child health services in emergencies:

• • In regards to Health in Emergencies, CRC has completed a reconfiguration of the Red Cross Emergency Clinic and Red Cross Emergency Hospital to better deliver RMNCH in crisis. The new configuration includes a Reproductive, Maternal, and Newborn Module, with capacities to delivery basic management of obstetric complications. When deployed with surgical capacity, it has the ability to offer comprehensive management of obstetric complications, in addition to reproductive and newborn health interventions.

• • CRC has supported our National Society partners to deliver mobile health services in Syria, Palestine, South Sudan, Pakistan, and Lebanon to improve RMNCH service delivery in emergencies.

Supporting shared leadership within the Movement and global advocacy efforts:

• • CRC represented the Movement on the Global Financing Facility (GFF) task force that specifically examined fragile settings.

Implementation completion: