The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives on Monday said dearth of midwives, nurses and other categories of health workers in public hospitals was hindering the country’s quest to achieve low child and maternal mortality rate.

 

It, therefore, urged government at the federal and state levels to employ more medical workers.

 

The Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, recently said the mortality statistics for maternal and children under the age of five years in Nigeria was not encouraging.

 

According to him, 2,300 children die daily from preventable causes while the country loses 145 women daily from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

 

He announced the establishment of the National Emergency Maternal and Child Health Intervention Centre, saying that it would help the Federal Government to achieve the target of reducing the death rate by half by the year 2021.

 

Speaking during an event held in Abuja to commemorate the 2019 International Nurses Week, NANNM Vice-President, Azonwo Mercy, said the available midwives lacked the tools necessary for them to help save lives in the hospitals and help government achieve the target.

 

According to her, government needed to review its policy on funding for the health sector, stressing the need to establish more hospitals and equip them with modern medical equipment.

 

She said, “We are having poor maternal mortality indices in Nigeria today because the number of midwives in our hospitals is not enough to care for the population of women visiting hospitals to receive care. Many of the midwives have retired with no replacement while many left the system. How are we not going to have high mortality rate when there are no midwives in the hospitals?

 

“We have been calling on the government to provide infrastructure and equipment that will help the available midwives to perform their duties in the hospital. When you don’t have that in place, it will fall back on the morbidity and mortality rate of women in the hospital.

 

“Government needs to reconsider its policy on the employment of midwives in our hospitals. There is a need for more hospitals, more midwives and better equipment in our hospitals to help our health workers perform effectively.

 

The Chairperson of the association in Abuja, Deborah Yusufu, said the outreach programme was organised by NANNM to offer free medical test for women, children and pregnant women.

 

She said the association would follow up on the cases of beneficiaries of the free medical test while those with critical conditions would be referred to the hospital for further treatment.

 

Yusufu said, “We have a referral system in place to help people with serious cases. We have members in all hospitals that can take up cases of those whose conditions are serious.

 

“Our major challenge today is shortage of manpower whereby a nurse attends to more than 25 cases in a shift. We beg government to employ more nurses and midwives to help the health care delivery system in Nigeria.”