By Diepriye Oruene
Rivers State Ministry of Health and its partners have reaffirmed commitment in reducing maternal neonatal and child health mortalities by providing more health care facilities across the state.
The Chief Medical Director, Rivers State Hospitals Management Board, Dr Bright Ogbonda who made this known in a keynotes at a one-day facility assessment workshop in Port Harcourt, said the aim of the workshop was to proffer solutions in reducing Obstetrics and Newborn death.
Dr Ogbonda highlighted some challenges and recommendations in the sector.
”There was an assessment of the infrastructure, equipment and readiness of each secondary health facility in Rivers State, to intervene in cases of obstetrics neonatal cases. So we have done that assessment and we have looked at various issues in each facility.Now what we finally ended up doing is to have a dissemination workshop which aims at looking at the assessment we did and then putting it in a form of a report and then proffer solutions to some of this reports.”
He further added that it was the initiative of Federal ministry of health to run the program across the 774 local government areas in the country and to ensure complete safety and reduce mortality for mothers and child health.
The Chief Medical Director, Rivers State hospitals management board however, expressed satisfaction as the initiative would cover some of the loop holes in the health care sector. On her part, the lead consultant, Jhpiego corporation, Nigeria office, Dr. Jaiyeola Oyetunji emphasized collaborative effort from various stakeholders as key to achieving the desired goal of program.
”The recommendation is to encourage the government of Rivers State to continue to buy into this program because the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Governors Forum, they have reached an agreement, We need to put to a stop to this, death of the mothers and babies across the country. There are Partners that are willing to bring in money to support the state but that willingness, that political will needs to be there.”
Dr Oyetunji who is also in charge of family planning and reproductive health jhpiego Nigeria, stated that the well being of any pregnant woman is key to the successful delivery of any child as she is the life carrier of that being.
Highlights of the event were goodwill messages from stakeholders, training sections for facility heads and the unveiling of the health assessment reports for obstetric and newborn.
