Burundi

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, given that Burundi is one of the worst performers as regards millennium development goal 5, what plans do the Government have to help Burundi to achieve that goal?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, we believe that our funding through the EU programme that takes on the role of looking at maternal and child mortality will assist through an agency that is better placed to deliver that.

Population Growth

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, population growth and its consequences is a question that crops up in daily conversations but is a subject that people find difficult to discuss. It quickly leads to polarised positions and finger-pointing as to who is having too many babies and why. To many people of the world, children are a security for support in old age.

In a recent report of a debate on the subject, “Crisis and recovery: ethics, economics and justice”, participants included two highly respected members of your Lordships' House: the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the economist, the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. The panel also included Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian, and Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith. The question of population growth arose. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, was deeply worried because he felt that although education, particularly of women, reduces fertility rates, it was too slow for population growth to be controlled in this century. The Archbishop was equally concerned. He agreed that population growth was “a timebomb” but he was worried that state attempts to control it had been abhorrent to concepts of human rights. He was “deeply perplexed”. As has been said, the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, feared a Malthusian population crash or a series of such crashes, resulting in bringing the population of the world down to 3 billion to 4 billion in a century.

The pessimism and confusion expressed leaves one feeling gloomy, particularly for our children and grandchildren. The population of the world is projected to reach 9 to 10 billion by 2040, by which time the UK population is estimated to be around 66 million to 70 million. Both figures are unsustainable. The impact, particularly on the environment, will be punishing and catastrophic.

What is the solution? Who will save the world and the United Kingdom? The facts have been staring us in the face for decades. Two things emerge as being important for controlling population growth. A drop in fertility rates in many parts of the world has always been linked to gender empowerment and female education. State attempts impinge on human rights, yet failure to address the problem could cause a global population crash. Gender empowerment holds the key. The answer to the question, “Who will save the world from the scourge of poverty, environmental disaster, disease and strife?” is women. Women will save the world if they have freedom of education, freedom of choice in family planning and if we eradicate gender bias. I hope that the efforts of DfID will focus on that and that its aid will produce the empowerment of women.

Millennium Development Goals

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, professionally I am an obstetrician and I have witnessed the death of a mother in childbirth. It scars you for life. Therefore, I applaud the Government’s new commitment to save the lives of 50,000 mothers.

One of the four drivers of the reduction in maternal mortality has been capacity building in the health system, particularly in trained and skilled birth attendants, including for emergency obstetric care. The UK is well placed to deliver on this. Professional organisations such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives are very experienced in this area. DfID already works through its five-country programme in sub-Saharan Africa with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I hope that it will engage again with the professional organisations to meet its commitments. The methodology lends itself to interventions around contraception and essential obstetric care. This module can be quickly rolled out on a hub and spoke principle, as exemplified by the success of the partnership project in Malaysia, which is being spread into surrounding countries, such as Indonesia.

I am also encouraged that DfID recognises in its document that, for every woman who dies, 20 more suffer disabilities such as the terrible condition of obstetric fistula. I work with professional organisations to help to train doctors and nurses to care for such women. It is estimated that 20 million women with obstetric fistula exist in sub-Saharan Africa alone; there are many more in south-east Asia. Their tales are heartbreaking. Let me read some. A 26 year-old woman from Equatorial Guinea said:

“I endured 5 days with delivery pains. I was finally transferred to the hospital and the foetus was dead. After 3 weeks, I started to feel constant flows in my vagina, and the odour was very bad. The situation has persisted for 10 years”.

A 22 year-old woman from Bangladesh said:

“Nobody wants to stay with me due to the smell of urine. Even my husband sometimes blames me for my condition”.

A 48 year-old woman from Mali said:

“I am distasteful in the eyes of others. It is God’s will”.

Another woman said:

“Everyone has rejected me. Cure me or kill me”.

It is possible to cure these women. All that is required is a commitment to do so. When you cure them and you see their faces, it is like magic. A 48 year-old woman from Tanzania said:

“I did not know that one day I would be like other women, because the problem was so big”.

Another woman said:

“When I returned to the village, those who did not believe that I was healed were embarrassed when I saw them. I have become a person again”.

Hitherto, DfID has not felt that it needs to do something for these millions of women with obstetric fistula. I hope that it changes its mind. Through the work of professional organisations, these women who suffer from long-term disability and who live a living death can be helped, just as the death of women in childbirth can be prevented.