FG spends N3bn to curb maternal mortality

By Mustapha Salihu, Kano
Monday, 27 Sep 2010
The Federal Government has committed an initial appropriation of about N3bn for the Midwives Service Scheme which has been solely financed by it, but with technical support from the international development partners.
National Primary Health Care Development Agency zonal coordinator North West, Dr. Abdullahi Garba revealed this in an interview with pressmen at the end of a training workshop for 42 medical doctors in Kano under the scheme.
Garba who represented the Executive Secretary of NPHCDA, Dr. Muhammad Pate disclosed that the scheme funded by the FG through the Office of the Millennium Development Goals has delivered tremendous impact to justify the huge investment.
He revealed that over 800 midwives have been recruited so far under the MSS and deployed to 653 primary health centres across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The zonal coordinator pointed out that all the 163 General Hospitals nationwide were provided with ICT facilities to link the Primary Health Centres stating that the primary objective of the scheme was to bring the services to the doorstep of the needy.
According to Garba, the public health sector has been greatly improved since the introduction of the MSS.He affirmed that the success of the scheme has drastically reduced the pressure on General and Specialist Hospitals, which are meant to be strictly research centres to handle complicated cases.
He said, “Before this scheme, the story was very bad. The maternal mortality index was high, and we lost a lot of mothers during childbirth. This ugly situation has changed since the introduction of the scheme.
“The Federal Government is very committed to this scheme. It believes the generation must continue and that if we allow this maternal mortality to increase, it will spell doom for the progress of the country. So, the FG is so committed to reversing the ugly trend”, he vowed.