Need for timely release of funds to promote maternal, new born health in Bauchi stressed

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Zuwaira Baba, Secretary, MPCDSR 

By Akanji Alowoludo, Bauchi

The need for Bauchi State Government to ensure prompt release of budgetary allocations to health MDAs has been stressed in order to promote Maternal, New Child Health (MNCH) in the state.

Speaking during a 3-day media training on Maternal, Perinatal Child Death Surveillance Response (MPCDSR) holding at Misau, Secretary of the State Steering Committee of MPCDSR, Zuwaira Baba said that with prompt release of budgetary allocations to all the health MDAs to complement what the international donor agencies are doing, maternal and child health will improve tremendously.

According to her, maternal and child health is the paramount in promoting quality healthcare delivery saying that this aspect of health will ensure that there is a healthy and productive society.

Zuwaira Baba who is the Gender Officer of the State Ministry of Health, stress the need for advocacy on the identified authorities who can adequately influence the timely release of allocations in order to ensure that the problems affecting quality healthcare service delivery in the state was solved.

She lamented that Nigeria with population estimated at almost 200 million has 2.5% of world’s population but accounts for 14% of all maternal deaths worldwide which has been revised now to 23% or 67,000 deaths in 2017.

According to her, the NDHS 2018 MMR is 512/100,000 while that of Bauchi State Fertility rate is 7.2  above national average of 5.3%, % births delivered in Health Facility at National is 35.8/ while that of Bauchi state is 21.8 just as the  % births delivered by SBA at the National is 43.0/ Bauchi

Zuwaira Baba said that One of several approaches recommended by WHO for reducing maternal and perinatal mortality as revealed in 2004 is all countries to establish medical audit system to identify the faces and reasons for maternal and perinatal deaths and respond to recommendations from the audits, prevent subsequent deaths, and consequently improve maternal and perinatal health services.

The audit or review process which is essentially a system of continuous evaluation and assessment of progressive improvement in care is shown to be a most effective approach to improving HCP performance in low-resource settings and potential for bringing about changes at Health Facility level.

The training for 15 working journalists in Bauchi State is facilitated by the USAID funded Integrated Health Programme.