ENUGU – Dr Ngozi Nwosu, the South East Zonal Coordinator, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) wants states in the zone to take ownership of health initiatives in their areas.
Nwosu made the appeal on Monday during the NPHCDA/Society for Obstetrics and Genecology of Nigeria (SOGON) sensitisation meeting in Enugu.
She said that health facilities provided by the agency in the rural areas were not put to optimal use due to neglect by the state and local governments.
She said that the Midwives Services Scheme (MSS) introduced by the agency to discourage patronage of traditional birth attendants in the rural areas was at its lowest ebb in the zone.
“We looked at the health indices and discovered that the agency has built health centres but nothing is working.
“Since the states and local government areas do not have the capacity to recruit manpower, we decided to recruit midwives for the health facilities.
“This is to enable our women use the facilities during child birth instead of going to the traditional birth attendants,” she said.
Nwosu said that no fewer than four midwives and two extension health workers were recruited for each of the MSS health facilities across the country.
“We have a lot of challenges in the South East. Apart from the efforts by six local government areas in Ebonyi State, no other state in the zone is serious,” she said.
Nwosu said that the states and local government areas were expected to pay the health workers in the facilities a minimum of N20,000 and N10,000 respectively.
“None of the states in the zone is paying to complement the N40,000 paid by the agency,” he said.
She said that many of the midwives were already dropping from the scheme due to the harsh condition they were subjected to.
“The accommodation provided for them is nothing to write home about. We have had cases where our midwives were raped due to porous security,” she said.
Nwosu appealed to the various states and local governments to match words with action by providing the enabling environment for the midwives to function. [eap_ad_1] “This is something we do for our women and children who have no capacity to visit secondary and tertiary health facilities,” she said.
She said that the Federal Government had made enough commitment to improve health facilities to achieve the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Nwosu said that the agency was also liaising with obstetricians and gynaecologists to provide training for the midwives and other health workers in the health facilities.
She said that the move was to improve the implementation of the primary health at the grassroots as well increase confidence of mothers in the sector.
“By so doing we expect that they will sharpen the skills of the health workers in order to reduce child and neonatal mortality,” she said.
“More than 70 per cent of our women use rural health centres. The agency has thought it wise to utilise the manpower that we have to reach them,” Nwosu said. (NAN)
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