Strengthening human resources for health systems resilience to care for mothers and children

Abstract

What do we need to do better to ensure better health, and less preventable morbidity and mortality among mothers, babies and young children? This is the question asked by the papers of this special edition. In their introductory commentary, Fotso and Fogarty point to substantial progress made in improving young children’s health, and some progress in improving health for mothers. But clearly our efforts globally are not good enough if eight million children and 350,000 pregnant and postpartum women still die annually of preventable causes. The answer is simple and yet target-defeatingly complex: access to skilled, equipped, supported and motivated health workers who serve women through pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care. Furthermore, both question and answer are ultimately not about MNCH, nor ‘just’ about human resources for MNCH, but about functioning and resilient health systems, which provide the frame, the resources, and the support within which health workers function and interact with communities and young mothers.