Parents Tasked On Daughters' Enrolment Into Midwifery

Halima Musa
Kano — Parents in the North-west region of the country have been urged to encourage their female children to enrol into the school of midwifery to increase the number of midwives in government health organizations. The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Dr Ado J G Muhammad made the call in Kano at one-day meeting of Ward Development Committees, North-West zone under the midwives serving scheme program.

Represented by the zonal coordinator, North-west zone, Dr A.B Garba, Muhammad said the number of indigenous midwives is very low in the zone while noting that trained midwives could help to reduce maternal mortality in the country.

"I'm calling on parents to encourage their female children to enrol into the school of midwifery because it is only through this channel that we can get trained midwives that would assist in the newly introduced Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) which is aimed at reducing maternal mortality in Nigeria," he said.

He noted that most of the midwives under the scheme are from the Southern part of the country, adding that lack of indigenous midwives in the scheme is posing so many challenges to the success of the program.

The executive director solicited the support of communities where the Midwives Service Scheme is running to provide an enabling and secured environment for the workers. Also speaking, the Executive Director of Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR), a Non Government Organization(NGO)AbdulHamid Abdullahi Bagara, a collaborating partner, said the CHR has signed an MOU with NPHCDA to support quarterly data collection and analysis on the Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) in Kano and Sokoto States and also to conduct simple MSS budget analysis to generate facts that will facilitate advocacy, especially on state and local governments commitment to the MSS program.

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