Maternal Mortality: 2,819 Midwives Assigned To Nigerian Villages

2,819 midwives have been assigned to rural communities in Nigeria as part of efforts to reduce the current high rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria by the The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA ).

The midwives who are trained on life saving skills, integrated management of childhood illnesses and other initiatives to improve quality of care. Mothers will be empowered through the provision of “mama” kits that will include a very innovative personal health record book to allow them to control their health information.

The NPHCDA Executive Secretary, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate said that the midwives were deployed under its Midwives Service Scheme to 652 primary health care facilities which were linked to 163 general hospitals in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The agency stressed that, the loss of the lives of mothers and newborn babies could be linked to three delays including the inability to recognize that there was a problem and that health care must be sought ,often due to lack of access to the right information.

Other delays he said include those due to lack of means to access health care which could be physical and financial as well as the non-availability of needed service and skilled manpower to provide the services.

Pate argued that two of the delays occurred at the primary health care and community level and could be minimized and mitigated through an effective primary health care system.

He said that the MSS was an important entry point for delivering better maternal and newborn health outcomes as well as for revitalizing the primary health care system.

The midwives, he said, were posted to primary health care facilities in rural areas throughout the states and the 774 local government areas, and therefore urged them to work at the various facilities they had been posted to in the various rural communities, stressing that they must collaborate with the ward development committees.

While advising them to compile community profiles and report maternal/child health indices, Pate described maternal and newborn deaths as a national tragedy, adding that every life lost negatively affected the nation’s human capital.

“The agency is working closely with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria and appreciates the support of the registrar of the council and her team. We have mutual responsibility for the survival of mothers and children in Nigeria,” Pate said.

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