Committee urges timely release of funds to promote maternal, new born health in Bauchi
Mohammed Kaka Misau
Bauchi State Government have been urged to ensure prompt release of budgetary allocations to health Ministry, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in order to promote Maternal, New Child Health (MNCH) in the state.
The Secretary of the Bauchi State Steering Committee of Maternal, Perinatal Child Death Surveillance Response (MPCDSR), Zuwaira Baba made the call during Media Training of 15 working Journalists in Bauchi state on the MPCDSR on Tuesday as facilitated by the USAID funded Integrated Health Programme.
According to her, with prompt release of budgetary allocations to all the health MDAs to complement what the international donor agencies are doing, maternal and child health will improve significantly.
Zuwaira Baba further explained that, maternal and child health is paramount in promoting quality healthcare delivery.
She maintained improving maternal and Child health will ensure that there is a healthy and productive society.
Zuwaira Baba who doubles as the Gender Officer of the State Ministry of Health, stressed the need for advocacy on the identified authorities who can adequately influence the timely release of allocations.
Zuwaira said by doing so, the problems affecting quality healthcare service delivery in the state would be addressed.
She lamented that Nigeria with population estimate of almost 200 million has 2.5% of world’s population but accounts for 14% of all maternal deaths globally which she noted, has been revised now to 23% or 67,000 deaths in 2017.
Zuwaira said the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) 2018 Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) is 512/100,000 while that of Bauchi State Fertility rate is 7.2 above national average of 5.3 percent.
Zuwaira added that the percentage of births delivered in Health Facility at National is 35.8 while that of Bauchi state is 21.8.
Zuwaira who said that the percentage of births delivered by Skilled Birth Attendants (SBA) at the National is 43.0 added that, one of the several approaches recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) for reducing maternal and perinatal mortality as revealed in 2004 is for all countries to establish medical audit system to identify the faces and reasons for maternal and perinatal deaths.
Other approach according to her, is to respond to recommendations from the audits, prevent subsequent deaths, and consequently improve maternal and perinatal health services.
