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At the head of the table from left: Marie-Hortense Koudika, Medical Operational Cell Deputy Manager for Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali, Jigawa State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Muhammed Abdullahi Kainuwa and Dr. Abdel Kader Issaley, Head of Mission, MSF.
After 15 years of providing health services in Jigawa State especially for women at the Jahun General Hospital, Médecins Sans Frontières in conjunction with the state government, various partners and other stakeholders are making efforts to expand the services.
By Anthony Maliki, Abuja
Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders (MSF)’s inroads at improving women’s health in Jigawa State cannot be overemphasized. Having spent 15 years attending to women medical concerns in every front in the state, it is evaluating the activities in order to take the assistance further. This was the crux of the three days high level, experts and stakeholders’ roundtable held in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, from October 23 to 25, 2023.
Though the roundtable was held in the ambience of the cozy Sandralia Hotel, Utako, the meeting hall was far from comfortable. It was all concentration and tackling the tough issues at hand. Across the meeting hall is a lush swimming pool with a setting like a beach in the Caribbeans but participants didn’t have the luxury of taking a dive in its blue waters. This showed the depth and seriousness of the assignment at hand.
After a brief introduction on the opening day by the coordinators Timothy Williams and Marainne Viot, sessions of the workshop began in earnest. The general theme of the workshop was “Roadmap to reducing maternal morbidity and mortality in Jigawa State: Evolution of a collaborative approach to expand access and improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.”
The first day sessions included “How women health policies efforts and funding evolved over the last 15 years?”, “MSF intervention overview-Jahun project activities, successes and challenges”, “How can we interpret the results of the project, on which ground?”, “Is the burden of maternal morbidity and mortality specific to Jigawa State?” and “What are the strategic plans/policies and funding efforts for women health in Jigawa State?”
Some topics on the second day included: “Preventing the evitable burden of maternal health complications”, “Fistula: A silent disease. How to increase knowledge, exchange and prevention practices on this health burden” and “How to prevent severe cases/complications and tackle co-morbidities?”
Day three focuses among others: “What preventive measures and policies can we implement to ensure the continuity of maternal health in a ‘safe’ environment?” and “How do we partner and share efforts in terms of resources and policies?”
On the whole about 60 medics, policy makers and other stakeholders across MSF, federal and state governments, international and national organizations, patients and partners took part in the workshop. The Governor of Jigawa State Mallam Umar Namadi participated on the second day of the workshop to show the political will of the state government.
Some of the participants are Jigawa State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Muhammed Abdullahi Kainuwa, Marie-Hortense Koudika, Medical Operational Cell Deputy Manager for Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger-MSF-France-Cell, Dr. Abdel Kader Issaley, Head of Mission, MSF, Dr. Simba Tirima, Country Representative, MSF, Dr. Kabiru Ibrahim, Executive Secretary, PHCDA, Jigawa State, Mrs. Hadiza T. Abdulwahab, Jigawa State Commissioner of Women Affairs, Victor Dara, Project Coordinator, Jahun Project-MSF, Dr. Yusuf Saidu, Medical Director, Jahun General Hospital, Mrs. Halima Uba, VVF Unit Supervisor, Jahun General Hospital, Dr. Kani Yamuna, Researcher and lecturer, Federal University, Dutse and member, Epicentre steer, Dr. Huiwa Chen, Epidemiologist, MD, Epicentre/MSF and Aishatu Musa Babale, Pharmacist, Public health supply chain and Aminu Adamu Ringim, Permanent Secretary, Jigawa State Ministry of Health among others.
Capping the three-day workshop with a press conference, Marie-Hortense Koudika gave a disturbing general data about maternal mortality in Nigeria.
She said Nigerian has one the highest in the world with a ration of 1000/100,000 women who die during pregnancy while the average for Africa is 500. She said only South Sudan and Somalia have worse indicators than Nigeria, so Nigeria is the third. According to her, the maternal mortality rate in Jigawa State is 1,100/100,000.
Marie-Hortense stressed that with a population of over 7 million, 365,000 pregnancies are expected in Jigawa State this year which means 4,000 mothers could lose their lives in 2023.
She spoke about the dearth of skilled birth attendants in the state explaining that MSF started its intervention in Jahun General Hospital since 2008 with Obstetrical Fistula repair, one of the most serious and dangerous injuries that can occur during childbirth.
Marie-Hortense noted that from 2008, in collaboration with Jigawa State ministry of health a lot has been done with 143,000 hospitalization, 90,000 deliveries with 18,000 through Caesarean Section.
There were 19,000 new-born admissions and 6, 000 cases of VVF with the good success, she said.
The MSF official said over the years, based on needs and identified gaps, the project was quickly expanded to provide Comprehensive Emergency Maternal Obstetrics and Neonatal Care (CEMONC) and has been supporting Primary Health Centre (PHC) facilities in Jahun, Aujara, Miga and Taura, since 2016, on basic emergency maternal obstetrics and neonatal care.
Jigawa State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Muhammed Abdullahi Kainuwa explained that women health in Nigeria particularly maternal mortality in the north is unacceptable.
He pointed out that in the last decade and a half, MSF has been supporting the government of Jigawa State in Jahun General Hospital but that the government is also during all it could to better the health of women in the state.
Dr. Kainuwa who has experiences working for World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF said the workshop also discussed issues on how to extend issues of family planning facilities and acceptance, sexual violence and support the Jahun General Hospital where MSF is domicile.
The commissioner said the workshop agreed to scale-up and increase the number of comprehensive emergency obstetric care in General Hospitals across the state.
According to him, the government is going to make sure facilities are provided in the 281 primary health centres spread over the 27 local government areas of the state.
Answering a question on fundings for the policies and programmes it intends to execute, Dr. Kainuwa explained that the state government has the pollical will and has agreed on 15% of its budget to go to the health sector.
He said health is the second priority sector of the state government and the 15% is founded on the African Union agreement based on Abuja Declaration.
He said a N79 million is set-aside monthly by the government for free maternal care in the state showing commitment women health.
Dr. Issaley praised Jigawa State government for showing interest in women’s health acknowledging the presence of the Governor at the workshop.
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