The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently, expressed serious concern over the widespread shortage of skilled medical personnel such as nurses and midwives to properly intervene at the right time in maternal and child health care issues in Nigeria.

 

Apart from complaining about the shortage of manpower, the agency were also worried about absence of relevant medication, sanitary facilities and other hospital consumables required by expectant mothers and infants both at the point of conception and after delivery.

 

Although, accurate statistics of deaths through maternal and infant health problems are scarce or difficult to obtain, records from hospitals have readily indicated that the mortality rate has continued to rise.

 

Estimates of infant mortality compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO) placed the rate of deaths at 100 per 1000 births in 2003, but this figure allegedly fell by 1990 due to persistent low patronage of health facilities and the falling number of births recorded by trained healthcare service providers.

 

The world health agency regretted in a recent statement that in 2003, two third of births in Nigeria still occurred at home and many expectant mothers were attended to by unregistered, poorly trained health attendants or midwives with the result that only one-third of births in the country are supervised or registered by qualified doctors, nurses or midwives.

 

In the same manner, USAID claimed that 35 000 Nigerian women who died in childbirth in 2014 accounted for 13 per cent of the global maternal deaths that year and complained specifically that the shortage of skilled medical workers has severely constrained the delivery of timely and high quality health care, especially in rural communities where such services are required the most.

 

Nigerians now have cause to celebrate because the complaints and concern expressed by these international health agencies over the high number of deaths among new born babies and pregnant women through excessive bleeding and neglect in the country have started receiving attention and immediate intervention response from the Rotary Club of Nigeria, District 9140, Ekulu Layout Enugu.

 

Rotarians of the district rose up in unison to intervene in the worrisome problems with concrete actions by equipping selected hospitals throughout the nation, starting with Enugu state, with relevant machines required by operating theaters and offering training opportunities to hospital workers especially doctors and midwives to help ameliorate or reduce maternal and infant mortality problems in the country.

 

Officials of the Club disclosed that financing the project will not pose any problems because Rotary Club, District 9140 went into mutual partnership with six Rotary Clubs in Germany, Austria and the United States to embark on the ambitious project described as “a vigorous campaign against the rising problems of maternal and infant mortality rates in Nigeria” with the hope of tackling or drastically reducing the death rate.

 

At a recent interaction with Newswatch Times in Abuja, the Chairman of the Project Implementation Committee, Rotary Club District 9140, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, Mr. Eric Igweshi disclosed that the club embarked on the project to show its deep concern over the alarming increase in maternal and infant mortality cases in the country.

 

He disclosed that the Enugu State Ministry of Health and the Catholic Institute for Development, Justice and Peace have equally agreed to collaborate with the Rotary Club in the project and after intense screening; five hospitals were selected to benefit from a comprehensive action plan that would help reduce the problem in the east.

 

Rotarian Eric Igweshi explained that the health institutions selected after thorough assessment visits to various communities across the state were considered to be qualified and would be supplied with relevant equipment, instruments and hospital consumables.

 

Some of the items already purchased for distribution, he said, include anesthetic machines, theatre and delivery beds, theatre lights, ultra-sound machines, baby incubators, cardio-cotograph machines, 20kv power generators, refrigerators, surgical instruments, drugs and other consumables stressing that the project will cost the club more than N30 million.

 

 

Igweshi expressed the desire of the Rotary Club to extend the same level of intervention programme for two years to cover other parts of the federation and to ensure its effective implementation saying also that the period will allow the incubation and stability of training programmes designed for the capacity building of workers in the benefiting health care centres.

 

He disclosed that already, 24 medical doctors and nurses are being retrained on modern hospital delivery processes, while twelve other doctors are specializing on surgical procedures involved in caesarian operations just as 24 others are studying emergency obstetrics.

 

The Rotarian also disclosed that already, 150 traditional birth attendants have been signed on and trained on modern and hygienic methods of child delivery processes, apart from being sensitized on how and when to refer patients, especially expectant mothers, to specialist hospitals on time to avoid complications.

 

Rotarian Igweshi explained that the objective of the intervention was to drastically reduce maternal and infant mortality cases in the country pointing out that the club has also established a Rotary Maternal and Child Health Clinic in Enugu state to serve as a platform for research, training and gathering of statistics on maternal and infant mortality cases in the country.

 

USAID, it may be recalled had noted that in many parts of Nigeria, a shortage of skilled doctors, nurses and midwives had severely constrained the delivery of timely, high-quality health care, especially in rural communities.

 

The agency noted that, “community health extension workers, who are trained to provide community outreach, have replaced nurses and doctors in primary health care centers while links between communities and healthcare providers have eroded, while community distrust of health services have increased.”

 

It was gathered for example that in 2008, only 14 percent of pregnant women in Sokoto State, received antenatal services while 95 percent women delivered their babies at home.

 

A USAID document also showed that the agency had established a functional community-based health programme that promoted healthy household practices and expanded access to the use of facility-based services, apart from training new cadres of skilled community-based health volunteers to implement the programme.

 

“With support from USAID, Sokoto worked with ward development committees to identify, train, and support 2440 women volunteers to promote positive health-seeking behaviors and extend basic health services in resource-poor areas of the state. Discussions with the Sokoto State government to sustain the volunteer program are ongoing,” the agency said.

 

By Cyril Mbah 

My News Watch Times