A/RES/71/169
Intensification of efforts to end obstetric fistula
including training on fistula prevention, treatment and care as a standard element of
the training curricula of health professionals;
(d) Ensuring universal access through national policies, plans and
programmes that make maternal and newborn health -care services, particularly
family planning, skilled attendance at birth, emergency obstetric and newborn care
and obstetric fistula treatment, financially accessible, including in rural and remote
areas and among the poorest women and girls, through, where appropriate, the
establishment and distribution of health-care facilities and trained medical
personnel, collaboration with the transport sector for affordable transport options,
the promotion of and support for community-based solutions and the provision of
incentives and other means to secure the presence in rural and remote areas of
qualified health-care professionals who are able to perform interventions to prevent
obstetric fistula;
(e) Developing, implementing and supporting national and international
prevention, care and treatment and socioeconomic reintegration and support
strategies, policies and plans to eliminate obstetric fistula within a generation,
developing further multisectoral, multidisciplinary, comprehensive and integrated
action plans in order to bring about lasting solutions and put an end to maternal
mortality and morbidity and obstetric fistula, which is preventa ble, including by
ensuring access to affordable, accessible, comprehensive, high -quality maternal
health-care services, and, within countries, incorporating into all sectors of national
budgets policy and programmatic approaches to address inequities and r each poor,
vulnerable women and girls;
(f) Establishing or strengthening, as appropriate, a national task force for
obstetric fistula, led by the Ministry of Health, to enhance national coordination and
improve partner collaboration to end obstetric fistula;
(g) Strengthening the capacity of health-care systems, in particular public
health systems, to provide the essential services needed to prevent obstetric fistula
and to treat existing cases by increasing national budgets for health, ensuring that
adequate funds are allocated to reproductive health, including for obstetric fistula,
ensuring access to fistula treatment through increased availability of trained, expert
fistula surgeons and permanent, holistic fistula services integrated into strategically
selected hospitals, thereby addressing the significant backlog of women and girls
awaiting surgical repair of fistula, and encouraging communication among fistula
centres to facilitate training, research, advocacy and fundraising and the application
of relevant medical standards, including consideration of the use of the World
Health Organization manual entitled “Obstetric Fistula: Guiding Principles for
Clinical Management and Programme Development”, which provides background
information and principles for developing fistula prevention and treatment
programmes, as appropriate;
(h) Mobilizing funding to provide free or adequately subsidized maternal
health-care and obstetric fistula repair and treatment services, including by
encouraging networking among providers and the sharing of new treatment
techniques and protocols to protect women’s and children’s well -being and survival
and to prevent the recurrence of subsequent fistulas by making post -surgery followup and the tracking of fistula patients a routine and key component of all fistula
programmes, and also to ensure access to elective caesarean sections for fistula
survivors who become pregnant again in order to prevent fistula recurrence and to
increase the chances of survival of mother and baby in all subsequent pregnancies;
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