Wife of the Delta State Governor, Dame Edith Okowa, has charged mothers and children to avail themselves of various Health Preventive Services provided by Public Health Institutions to address their health concerns and reduce avoidable deaths occasioned by preventable diseases.
The federal government has set aside $4 million to tackle family planning, child and maternal health in the 2018 budget, it was learnt yesterday.
Chairman of The Association for Advancement of Family Planning, Dr Ejike Orji, stated this at a media round table at the National Population Commission (NPC) headquarters in Abuja.
A member of the group, Dr Kole Shettima, lauded the federal government for allocation.
He said it was critical to the sustenance of maternal and child health programmes in the country.
A joint report by World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and World Bank has said Nigeria recorded 58,000 maternal mortality in 2015.
The report was presented by Dr Olusola Odujinrin at the 2017 Annual Faculty Day Lecture by the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.
GOVERNOR Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has expressed worries with the high rate of child and maternal mortality in the country, saying that nursing mothers and pregnant women should actively participate in efforts to reduce it.
Flagging off the first round of maternal newborn child health week, yesterday, at the Primary Health Centre, Ozuoba, Obio Akpor Local Government Area of the state, Governor Wike pleaded with pregnant women and nursing mothers to visit health centres near them for immunisation.
Women’s health indicators for Nigeria rank among the worst in the world. Nearly 30% of its women aged 15-19 year are or have been married and more than a fifth of the women begin child-bearing in their teens. The maternal mortality ratio stands at 545 deaths per 100 000 live births nationwide but nearly double that ratio (1026) in the North-West region.
As Nigeria prepares for the 4th Family Planning Conference, reports show that the country’s maternal mortality ratio has hit 576 death out of every 100,000 lie births daily.
This translate to about 40,000 women dying every year with 111 dyiing daily or 5 percent dying every hour.
This makes the country home to the second largest number of maternal deaths in the world after India.
