Nigeria Midwives Challenge Government to Help Fight Maternal Mortality

In order to mark the international day of midwives, the midwives in Nigeria have appealed to government in all its tiers, to provide more assistance and promoting healthcare delivery in areas of training and facilities to reduce the high rate of maternal and child mortality in the country.

Making the appeal in Abuja, the midwives said government will be saving well over a thousand women that die every day during childbirth due to the lack of proper maternity and midwives care services if it takes urgent action on the issue.

Responding to the midwives’ appeal, the Minister of state for Health, Muhammad Ali Patte announced that the government has posted five thousand midwives through the subsidy reinvestment and empowerment programme and is strategizing to boost the eighty-eight thousand registered midwives across the country, promising that the government will do more to assist the midwives.

According to report, there are thousands of other women in Nigeria alone, who have died owing to lack of maternity services during complications and care of midwives at childbirth. Maternal mortality rate reaches up to 3,200 women dying within 42 days after the childbirth.

Also in northern Nigeria, the maternal and child mortality rate is even higher. Many women have their babies under unhygienic conditions, malnutrition and lack of access to medical treatment because they deliver their babies at home with no skilled midwife.

The progress by Nigeria to reduce the growing rate of maternal mortality and attain the millennium development goals so far depends on the right political will and investments made by the government.
Source: Channels