Displaying items by tag: funding crisis

The Safe Motherhood Programme, which has drastically reduced maternal and neonatal mortality in Nepal, is at risk due to severe funding shortages. Rs 380 million (£2 million) is urgently needed to reimburse hospitals and continue essential services. An additional Rs 600 million (£3.3 million) will be needed this fiscal year to sustain operations. Launched two decades ago, the programme offers free delivery services, antenatal checkup incentives, and transportation allowances. It helped raise institutional deliveries from 18% to 80% and cut the maternal mortality rate from 539 per 100,000 live births in 1996 to 239 by 2016. However, nearly 130 maternal deaths have already occurred in the current fiscal year. The WHO has warned that progress toward the goal of reducing maternal mortality to 75 per 100,000 by 2030 could stall without immediate investment. The report stresses that broader efforts, like ensuring girls’ education, improving family planning, and tackling health inequalities, are crucial to safeguarding maternal and newborn lives.

The European Evangelical Alliance prayer network has a prayer request from Nazareth Hospital , which began 160 years ago as a Christian medical mission. It has grown from a five-bed clinic to the town’s main trauma and acute care hospital, employing 800 staff from all faiths in the region. Their Christian witness, mission and faith is important; their reach is felt across staff and the annual 250,000 patients. Talks with Israel’s government to find a solution to the funding crisis have been unsuccessful, and many hospital departments have had to close. Despite all their efforts they believe the Lord wants this ministry to continue. They say, ‘Please join us in urgent prayer for the hospital, that a solution will be found for our finances, that we will be able to pay our staff what they are owed, that the hospital will reopen, and that our Christian witness will continue for the next 160 years in Nazareth, or until the Lord returns.’