Statistics of infant mortality in Azerbaijan is silenced

Monitoring group to protect social rights of citizens held a roundtable on Wednesday at the International Press Center.

    Coordinator of  the Group, Iskenderli Azad, said that the structure is designed to protect the social rights of citizens, to enlighten them, and give publicity to these violations.

  The main theme of this meeting was the infant mortality rate. Target  for attacks and criticism became Nasib Guliyev, the Director of the Institute of Pediatrics. It seemed that the perpetrator of child mortality and responsibility for it bears only  this  Institute.

  Gafar Jafarov, a surgeon  of this Research Institute, accused its director of falsifying statistics of infant mortality,  and not informing the public about these facts. He said  that the statements of the  Minister of Health, Oktay Shiraliyev, that everything is OK in the country with birth of children, was not true.

  In the recent report  of the UN Children’s Fund,  Azerbaijan stands together with African countries on the number of child deaths.  The UN Children's Fund offered  the 68 world countries to provide financial assistance to the  countries with high child mortality, including Azerbaijan.

  In Azerbaijan, out of every thousand children, 36 die before their fifth birthday.

   In Georgia, this indices is 30, and in Armenia - 23.70% of infant mortality  is concealed.  There is not  statistics of infant mortality in childbirth at homes or on the road.

    This year, 75 infants died  in the Institute of Pediatrics, but only 45  facts have been officially reported. Such a high infant mortality rate makes it necessary to revise the personnel system in the Ministry of Health.

    The group members  also noted that they  visited  22 districts of the country. There is not appropriate  medical staff in new hospitals, patients  are not provided with  a highly skilled medical care.

    There are problems in providing invalids of Karabakh war with drugs. Members of the group intend to prepare and submit their proposals to the relevant structures. -05C04-