Nigeria aims to boost fight against maternal mortality

Abstract

In Nigeria little progress has been made in reversing the world’s second worst maternal health statistics which points to poverty low education levels and unsuccessful public health campaigns. Now new measures including a cohort of trained midwives deployed across the country an affordable health insurance scheme and possibly a new health law could allow the country to achieve major improvements in maternal and reproductive health. The tension between a shortage of health workers and medical supplies and the social shunning of medical facilities for the preference of traditional healers further exacerbates the high rate of deaths occurring during childbirth or shortly after. Various actors including the UN Population Fund are stimulating demand for family planning services and making them more affordable. Nigeria’s Health Minister Oyebuchi Chukwu says that new efforts are underway to jump-start the campaign to improve maternal and reproductive health. A community-based health insurance scheme was recently launched to provide greater access for community members to a comprehensive package of high impact and cost-effective interventions that would reduce maternal and child mortality targeting populations in locations that no longer have to pay directly for health services at the point of use. Meanwhile an increasing number of trained midwives are being deployed in various states to act as health educators. However health workers are disappointed by the dithering over passing a National Health Bill which if approved would establish minimum guarantees of basic healthcare services for groups such as children under 5 years and pregnant women and help extend primary healthcare to 60% of Nigerians living in rural communities.