350 Million Children Will Never See a Health Worker

20 September 2011

At least 350 million children will never see a health worker in their lives, warns Save the Children in a major new report released today, No Child Out Of Reach. The shortfall of doctors and nurses around the world means millions of children are dying from easily preventable diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Save the Children releases this report as world leaders gather at the UN General Assembly in New York. Across the globe celebrities like Alexis Bledel, Ashley Jensen, and Christy Turlington Burns have joined over a million campaigners, putting pressure on their leaders to take action at the UN to make sure no child dies because they can’t see a nurse or doctor.

The new report shows how effective a health worker can be in stopping children from dying. A single health worker can reach up to 5,000 children in one year with life saving treatment, and a country with enough doctors and nurses for all can increase a child’s chance of survival fivefold. Bangladesh and Nepal, both low-income countries, are proof that progress is possible. Both have prioritised training health workers in local villages and communities; both have managed to reduce the number of children dying.

CEO of Save the Children New Zealand Liz Gibbs says health workers are our most vital resource in improving the chances of survival of children, mothers and their families.

“We live in a world where eight million children die before their fifth birthday and where children in countries with sufficient number of midwives, nurses and doctors have a much greater chance of survival. The global health worker shortage is an issue that we can no longer ignore. Global action must be taken to ensure every child has a health worker within reach,” Ms Gibbs says.

The report No Child Out Of Reach says that world leaders must realise that their unmet promises on health will costs lives.

1. The statistic: “350 million children will never see a health worker” was adapted from the World Health Organisation’s statistic that one billion people never see a health worker in their lives (Increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention, Global Policy Recommendations, WHO,2011) Save the Children calculated the number of children using Unicef’s estimation that children make up 35% of the population of developing countries (State of the World’s Children 2011).The statistics about the number of health workers trained in Europe and Africa is sourced from Action for Global Health, 2010.

2. Save the Children New Zealand supports the health worker movement through our EVERY ONE ‘do ONE thing’ campaign – www.do1thing.org.nz

3. Save the Children is the world's leading independent organisation for children. We have members in 29 countries making a difference to children's lives in over 120 countries, including New Zealand and the Pacific. Save the Children's vision is a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation.

Links:
www.twitter.com/SaveChildrenNZ
www.facebook.com/SavetheChildrenNZ

© Scoop Media