Measuring progress towards the MDG for maternal health: Including a measure of the health system's capacity to treat obstetric complications

ObjectiveThis paper argues for an additional indicator for measuring progress of the Millennium Development Goal for maternal health—the availability of emergency obstetric care.MethodsMDG monitoring will be based on two indicators: the maternal mortality ratio and the proportion of births attended by skilled personnel. Strengths and weaknesses of a third indicator are discussedResultsThe availability of EmOC measures the capacity of the health system to respond to direct obstetric complications. Benefits to using this additional indicator are its usefulness in determining an adequate distribution of services and showing management at all levels what life-saving interventions are not being provided, and stimulate thought as to why. It can reflect programmatic changes over a relatively short period of time and data requirements are not onerous.ConclusionA measure of strength of the health system is important since many interventions depend on the health system for their implementation.