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Nigerian women and high maternal mortality
– Reported, June 07, 2013
The recent revelation by the Director-General of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Ado Mohammed, that no fewer than 60,000 Nigerian women die annually as a result of complications in pregnancy and the dearth of qualified health care experts to cater for expectant mothers, underscores the urgency of the need for the government at all levels to be more active in tackling the high child-birth-induced mortality scourge among women in the country.
While flagging off a scholarship and bursary award scheme instituted by a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Capacity Plus, to train 874 student-nurses, midwifery and community health extension workers in Makurdi, Benue State capital penultimate week, Ado said with such a number of pregnant women being lost annually, the USAID sponsored scholarship and training initiative was a specially welcome development. Indeed, scaling down maternal mortality happens to be one of the key components of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGS). Reports said the scholarship and bursary awards were meant to increase the availability of health workers to meet the priority health needs of Nigerians in 23 states covered by the Benue zone under the initiative, through sustainable and scalable human resources for health interventions; as well as enable the beneficiaries to economically improve their pass rate in their professional examinations, provide intuitional support for provision of textbooks, learning aids and equipment for demonstration, et cetera.
Sadly, Ados remark seems an official confirmation of earlier reports which indicted the Nigerian government for failing to implement its own policies on maternal health. We recall, for example, that in one of its published works, the New York, United States-based Centre for Reproduction Rights and Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, poignantly stated that the lack of financial and political commitment from the government had created a number of significant barriers for pregnant women seeking maternal care.
Titled Broken Promises: Human Rights, Accountability and Maternal Deaths, the publication listed such factors as the compulsory pre-requisite of blood donation by husbands, distance to maternity centres, corruption and ineptitude of many public health officials who, sometimes, demand in exchange for care, that pregnant women purchase basic necessities of specific brands, etc., as some of the impediments that hinder the access of women to maternal care in the countrys health institutions.
The damning verdict of the report is not just the truth, but of greater concern, based on the experiences of citizens on daily basis, remains the fact that governments at various levels in the country (except in a few states) seem to neither attach serious importance to the problem, nor appreciate its gravity. How unfortunate it is, that at a time when other less endowed countries have significantly reduced maternal mortality arising from preventable pregnancy-related complications, Nigeria is still crawling and tailing far from behind in meeting one of the most critical targets of the MDGs reducing maternal mortality!
Despite pledging to be committing 15 percent of the countrys annual budget to the health sector, the Federal Governments yearly vote for the sector rarely exceeds six percent. For the 2013 fiscal year, the allocation for the health sector is a paltry 6.4 percent of the total budget of N4.987 trillion, for instance. The situation is particularly distressing in the northern part of the country that battles with a high incidence of Visico Virginal Fistula (VVF). It is, therefore, worrisome that the deplorable condition of northern women would most probably worsen because of their rejection, out of ignorance and the lack of proper healthcare enlightenment, of pre- and post-natal vaccination; as well as the security threats health workers are facing in the North. Indeed, we think it is high time state and local governments up North took drastic and more far-reaching measures to save women in that part of the country from further avoidable and untimely deaths occasioned by pregnancy. We also expect the FG to do same nationwide. Since health is wealth, womens health, like education and economic empowerment, should be of utmost importance to any government committed to national development.
CREDITS.
http://nationalmirroronline.net/
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