Rural women in Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe and Zamfara states have taken a deeper sigh of relief following a decision by their respective governments to train 6,500 female health workers to man healthcare facilities in different communities across the five states.
 
The development was sequel to a partnership between Women for Health (W4H), a UKaid funded nongovernmental organization and the five state governments, Kano Chronicle, observed.
 
Already, over 2,000 female health workers have been trained under the programme tagged Foundation Year Programme (FYP) and posted to different healthcare facilities across the five states, while over 3,000 others are currently undergoing the training.
 
Also, over 20 healthcare training institutions comprising colleges of nursing and midwifery and schools of health technology across the five states have been supported under the programme.
 
Kano Chronicle gathered that the support was in terms of infrastructural development and capacity building of staff to be in tune with contemporary development in the health sector.
 
Rural communities in the five states are said to have suffered acute shortage of professional midwives in their primary healthcare centers, thereby forcing expectant mothers to largely depend on traditional birth attendants for their delivery.
 
 
This dearth of female health workers coupled with the tradition of the people, where cultural norms abhor woman from being attended to by a male health service provider, have worsen the process of health care delivery in rural communities, hence increasing cases of maternal death among the women populace.
 
Read more at https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/maternal-mortality-rural-women-regain-hope...