Santa Casa will be a strategic point for actions to reduce maternal mortality by the Ministry of Health
The institution will be one of the maternity hospitals in the country that will contribute to the implementation of actions aimed at ensuring that pregnant women receive adequate and timely care
The maternity hospital of Santa Casa do Pará was presented on the morning of this Tuesday, 12, as one of the ten matrix services in Brazil that will contribute to the implementation of the actions proposed by the Alyne Network, aimed at ensuring that pregnant women receive adequate and timely care, from prenatal monitoring to childbirth and postpartum, contributing to the reduction of complications and maternal deaths.
The presentation in Belém was made by the national coordinator of the Alyne Network, Tatiane Torres, who spoke about the importance of the Ministry of Health's work in specialized care for women.
“The Ministry of Health has been adopting several strategies for the qualification of maternal and child care in the country. The Alyne Network focuses on reducing maternal mortality by addressing ethnic-racial inequalities, with a special focus on regional disparities. It is no coincidence that the Ministry of Health is undertaking an action to qualify maternity hospitals, and this is the first state where we have put this initiative into action,” said the coordinator.
In addition to the Ministry of Health, the opening of the event was attended by representatives from the State Health Department of Pará (Sespa), the Municipal Health Department of Belém and other municipalities, as well as representatives from the State and Municipal Health Councils, along with the presence of managers and professionals from strategic areas of care for pregnant women and newborns at Santa Casa.
Rita Viana, from the State and Municipal Health Council (Consems), highlighted in her speech the importance of the Alyne Network and the Stork Network for having a history in the lives of professionals working in Sespa, municipal health departments, and at Santa Casa.
“The work in this program is part of the history of Santa Casa, since 2010, in the plan for the qualification of maternity hospitals, I had the opportunity to support this institution, where I was warmly welcomed by the professionals, and throughout this journey, it only reaffirms what we already know as a strategic and necessary hospital for our training and assistance in the State of Pará.”
The experience and commitment of Santa Casa professionals in caring for patients from all municipalities in the State, as well as the culture of already participating in qualifications and integrated actions with other institutions, are attributes that make the maternity hospital fit the profile of an institution for the development of the network's actions, highlighted the president of Santa Casa, Bruno Carmona.
“Knowing that we will be the first state to implement this task is good news and a great challenge. But we have a team that is fully committed and has the expertise for this action worked on with many hands between the Ministry of Health, State Department, Municipal Health Department, and all the agencies involved for the common good,” he stated.
Dr. Ana Cristina Guzzo, who represented the Health Department of Pará at the event, agrees that Santa Casa is the institution in the state with the profile to carry out the actions proposed by the network and to support other institutions in having qualified professionals.
“We will be able to have this dialogue with all these areas, from prenatal care in the basic health unit, routine risk prenatal care, high-risk prenatal care, timely referral, and risk stratification happening from prenatal care, which is fundamental,” she said.
Alyne Network - The Alyne Network program was launched in 2024 by the Federal Government to replace the Stork Network and aims to ensure a new model of health care for women and children, reduce maternal mortality by 25% by 2027, and reduce mortality for Black women by 50% by 2027, as well as achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal by 2030.
The name of the program is a tribute to Alyne da Silva Pimentel Teixeira, a Black woman who was a victim of medical negligence in 2002 in Rio de Janeiro, and who died due to this omission, with her case recognized as a violation of human rights.
“It is important that we are in the North region, which has more gaps in assistance and needs more equity in the funding of these services. So starting here at Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Pará is very important for us, as it represents a confrontation of these inequities, a respect for the specificities of women and their determinants of death and mortality,” highlighted the coordinator of the Alyne Network, who also emphasized that in the panorama of maternal mortality in Brazil, more Black and Indigenous women die today compared to White and Brown women.
“We have no biological justification for this increased number in Black and Indigenous women, and we need to confront this. Therefore, bringing qualification, attention, management, and teaching of maternal and child care services to the North is strategic, and the Ministry takes on this commitment with the Alyne Network to confront this mortality.”
