By Ulul Maskuriah
Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan (Antaranews) - The case of maternal and infant deaths in South Kalimantan is quite high, reaching 560 cases of infant mortality and 60 cases of maternal mortality.
Head of Provincial Health Agency Rudiansyah here on Tuesday said, the data continues to decline each year.
In 2012 the maternal mortality rate at 123 cases and down in 2013 as of September by 60 cases, and it is expected not to add up. So is the infant mortality reaching 816 cases in 2012 and in 2013 to September fell to 560 cases.
"Actually almost 96 percent of villages in South Kalimantan has midwives, but the policy has not been able to reduce maternal and child deaths significantly," he said.
According to Rudiansyah, there are several factors that make it hard to prevent maternal and infant mortality, among others is social view who still prefer traditional birth attendants than midwives.
Not least, the birth mother should immediately be referred to a health center or hospital, but because of the social views, among others, must look for water from shaman, so that the mother was late of help.
To enhance the role of the village midwives, the health agency is now recruiting clerics to assist the village midwives in performing their duties.
Through the cleric, the community is expected to be enlightened about the importance of health and midwife to check their content through a neighborhood health center or nearest health center.
In addition, he said, many pregnant women with high risk, such as hypertension, which should be referred to a hospital, but only dealt with in the village.
"Health Office program has quite a lot to improve public health, among others through free labor program and program coordination at the level of subdistrict, " he said.