THE role of community partnership in the fight against
poor maternal health services cannot be over-emphasised, especially when
we consider the maternal health indicators and statistics which
revealed that in Nigeria alone, maternal mortality rate reaches up to
3,200 women (number of mothers per 100,000 births dieing within 42 days
after the childbirth); in Northern Nigeria, particularly in the project
target area this rate is even higher.
The maternal mortality rate is even higher in areas where
many women have many babies in short time spans under malnutrition,
unhygienic conditions and lacking access to medical treatment.
Recently, the Development Communications (Dev Coms) Network,
under its NOTAGAIN campaign project, supported by Mac Arthur Foundation
a Maternal Health (MH) investigating reporting tour in some communities
in Nigeria. The field trip which is an activity under the MAC Arthur
founded project is to strengthen Maternal Health Accountability in
Nigeria.
The purpose of the tour was to bring the attention of policy
makers, governments, and the public, the current state of maternal
health care in visited community. Issues looked at include accessibility
of health care facilities to the people, attitude of women towards the
facilities, the preferred places of delivery and reasons, state of
available primary health care, including staffing, funding and
availability of drugs.
The tour also created awareness about opportunities,
challenges and lessons learnt in the delivery of maternal, newborn and
child health care. The United Nations (UN) have defined “Maternal Health
Care” as one of their top eight priorities for this millennium, As
reliable members of the society, women and mothers play a vital role for
sustainable development of family life in African nations, although
women often still lack fundamental human rights such as the right of
health and freedom from bodily harm.
In the Maternal Health (MH) field policy tour to Lagos, the
team came a cross a group the Ward Health Committee (WHC), which
consist of members trained by Partnership for Transforming Health System
in Nigeria (PATHS2) as Primary Health Care (PHC) mobilizers.
According to the Chairperson of the WHC, Alhaja Afisatu
Quadri, the members of the group which meets twice in a month, have
achieved success in mobilising people to the PHCs. This is a good way
communities can partner with the government to promote maternal health
services.
Alhaja Afisatu Quadri said before the training by PATHS2
which led to attendant high scale mobilisation of patients to the PHCs,
patients scarcely visit the health centers. The chairperson said the WHC
has bought fans for the Orisunbare PHC under Alimosho Local Government
Area of Lagos State. She added that nurses now do shift work in the
centers.
“We were trained around March 2014, we were trained on how to mobilise
people to our PHC, to make sure that the PHC is functioning and we use
to go to our CDA’s and talk to them.
We also work hand-in-hand with CDA’s chairman and the
Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the community. We also make use
of Bale in the community to encourage their people to attend the PHC”,
she said.
Alhaja Quadri said the greatest challenge at Orisunbare PHC
used to be electricity but expressed joy that PATHS2 has helped in
providing a Mekano generator set for the center. She also added that the
attitude of the health workers have been encouraging. “Even when we
bring patients by midnight, they don’t grumble when opening the center’s
door,” she said.
The Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of Orisunbare PHC Mrs. Giwa
Folake, thanked the Ward Health Committee members for their undying
effort in restoring normalcy to health delivery services of Alimosho
Local Government Area.
“Here we have antenatal clinic, child delivery immunisation center,
patient department and family planning unit. Before it was eight hours
duties we were having but now more staff including nurses, midwives and
laboratory technicians, have been employed. We now work for 24 hours.
This is the effort of the WHC”, she said.
A visit at Akowonjo PHC also in Alimosho Local Government
Area revealed similar feat. According to the Medical Officer of Health
(MOH), Dr. Odufuwa Kayode? Alimosho is one of the areas in Lagos that
has high mortality rate. As at two years ago the mortality rate was
almost 900 per 100,000.
According to Dr. Kayode, with the help of Lagos State
Primary Health Care Board, Haemorrhage which is a common thing after
delivery has reduced. He said the board help with the supply of
misoprostol.
“We have nutrition tracker. We go into the community in order to know
those people that are malnourished, we bring them to the PHCs to
rehabilitate them, he added.
The MOH also said there was post abortion care in the case
of spontaneous abortion but when it is a serious case, it is refered. He
added that Alimosho Local Government Area has 30 PHCs, out of which,
two operates on 24 hours basis. He said Akowenjo PHC is a model PHC
where major issues are referred to.
According to Nkire Chichi, member, Lagos State Civil Society
Partnership Development Consultant, PATHS2 work in partnership with
Ministry of Health, maternal and child health but basically at local
community level to uptimum, services delivery at the delivery at the PHC
level.
She said before PATHS2 can work with any local government, permission must be gotten from the local government chairman.
Nkire Chichi said members of WHC were trained to ensure good
management of the PHCs. This they do, according to her, by working
hand-in-hand with the staff. She added that PATHS2 also donate drugs but
based on government with the local government chairman.
“The WHC is the voice of the community. The monitor stock level of
drugs to ensure every month, drug is available”, Nkire said.
Mrs. Olayinka Yayioba, Mrs. Fumi Odedoyin and Mrs.
Olumatoyin Eken all pregnant women that visited Orisunbane PHC, said
they were satisfied with the services rendered and the friendly nature
of the health personnels. They however call for supply of more bed
sheets.
Mrs. Mustafa Aminat, Mrs. Abiola Johnson who are pregnant
women registered with Akowonjo PHC said they were happy to be part of
the success story but call on the local government to add more structure
to the existing building block to accommodate more people.
This write up is a clarion call to other local government in
the country to emulate their counterpart and Alimosho by setting up a
structure similar to that of the Ward Health Committee (WHC), for prompt
and effective maternal health service delivery.
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