Federal Govt, Rotary Commit To Improved Maternal, Child Health

The federal government has reiterated its commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of women, adolescents and children in Nigeria.

The minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, stated this at the Newborn, Child, Adolescent and Elderly Health plus Nutrition (RMNCAEH+N) multi-stakeholder partnership coordination platform meeting in Abuja.

He said “The health of mother and child is a strategic measure of national development and remains topical in global developmental priorities. We in Nigeria began the journey to improve activities around RMNCAEH+N, with streamlined strategies to accelerate the improvement of health and wellbeing of women, adolescents, and children, almost two years ago.”

Ehanire identified the modest progress made since we launched this platform in October 2020, as development of an Annual Operational Plan at about 90 per cent completion, strengthened partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health parastatals, including the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).

He said as part of RMNCAEH+N commitments, the federal government was working to ensure availability of family planning commodities and services, by launching the FP2030 commitment, aiming to increase domestic funding and sustainable financing through earmarking of 1 per cent health budgets, at federal and state levels.

“We are optimistic that Nigeria will attain its vision with a strategy that allows eligible citizens, including adolescents, young people, and vulnerable populations, to make informed choices and get equitable, affordable access to quality FP and participation in national development. This is the goal of the FP2030 commitment.

“Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) is a priority initiative that gives the serious subject of maternal, perinatal and infant mortality and morbidity audit the attention required, to learn lessons that help us avert future occurrence. The initiative has indeed been expanded to incorporate child mortality audit, making it now the Maternal Perinatal and Child Death Surveillance and Response (MPCDSR).”

The national coordinator, Rotary Maternal and Child health in Nigeria, Professor Emmanuel Adedolapo, said the organisation was supporting the Federal Ministry of Health, adding that RMNCAEH+N is on a centrally coordinating platform for stakeholders to have coordination activities so that there are no repetitions in the activities.

He said, so far, through the Department of Family Health of the Federal Ministry of Health, the coordination has been very effective in terms of data collection, advocacy and technical support.

“Rotary is a major supporter of the Federal Ministry of health on issues of maternal and child health in Nigeria. Rotary has been very active in Nigeria for many years, especially for eradication of polio. We have now added maternal and child health issues into our portfolio in the country. Our expectation is to increase the present contraceptive prevalence rate from the present 15 per cent to above 30 per cent in the next four to five years.

“Our expectation is to drastically reduce maternal mortality in the country, which is at the moment, 512 women dying out of 100,000 live births. That shows very high in the world and we have been doing a lot of work in terms of advocacy, capacity building in the country.

“Our next programme is a new grant that we are going to pursue, it is going to go into the wards, the grassroots, the Primary Healthcare Centres in the country and we are going to concentrate on outreaches so that people who are really concerned, where 70 per cent of birth is occurring really get the benefit of modern contraception and also get the best counselling to be able to reduce preventable maternal health as a result of postpartum and hemorrhage, and other causes of maternal deaths,” he said.