The federal government has launched the Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovative Initiative (Mamii) in Kano to improve access to healthcare services for pregnant women and reduce maternal mortality.
Speaking during the opening ceremony of the implementation design workshop in Kano on Monday, Mamii lead Dr Dayo Adeyoju said implementing the initiative would help actualise the president’s dream of ensuring no woman or child dies without any justification.
According to him, the program prioritised 172 local government areas across the country, which contribute 55 per cent of maternal deaths. These include Kano—18 LGAs, Katsina—15 LGAs, Borno—11 LGAs, Kaduna, and Jigawa states. The program emphasises the need for a deep drive to bring solutions for each LGA and community.
“We will be doing a process of doing a state context specific to look at real drivers here, proffer solutions and interventions that would enable us to crash this Maternal death across the country.”
While noting that Nigeria contributes to 20 per cent of global maternal mortality deaths, he reiterated the federal government’s commitment through the sectoral-wide approach (SWAP) and working with other stakeholders to ensure they crash mortality among women and children by addressing issues of access and shortages of health personnel, amongst others.
Earlier in his welcome remarks, the Kano state commissioner for health, Dr Abubakar Labaran, lamented the high rate of maternal/child mortality, zero dose children and malnutrition it inherited from the previous administration in the state.
He emphasised the state government’s effort to improve healthcare delivery, noting that the state has introduced free antenatal care and delivery in over 60 health facilities, increased the budget line for family planning, prioritised and improved vaccine uptake, and instituted community surveillance, among other things, to ensure the citizens received quality healthcare.
Dr Labaran also expressed the state’s willingness to participate in any effort to address maternal and child mortality.
