As part of effort to reduce maternal mortality and child mortality in the country, the Federal Government through the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) has trained a total of 639 midwives to be deployed to primary health centers in rural communities in the north east and north west zones of the country.
Speaking to journalists at the opening ceremony of a five-day workshop for midwives nationwide on Monday in Kaduna state, North West Nigeria, the Project Director of SURE-P Maternal and Child Heath Care, Dr Ugo Okoli, said the essence of the workshop was to re-orientate the newly graduated midwives from all the nursing schools across the country in order to engage them in the SURE-P Maternal and Child Health programme, with particular emphasis to address healthcare challenges at the rural areas where most of them don’t have access to qualitative healthcare.
She stated further that the SURE-P Maternal Programme was also equipping all primary health centers across the country with modern medical facilities for the benefit of the rural dwellers.
The SURE-P Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Project was necessitated by the fact that Nigeria accounts for 10% of the world’s maternal deaths and under-5 mortality rates.
Sadly, an official report released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2008, put Nigeria’s Maternal mortality ratio at 545/100,000 live births with the highest maternal mortality ratios of 1549 in the North East and the lowest 165 found in the South West.
The programme aims at reducing the deaths of pregnant women and newborn babies and aims to accelerate Nigeria’s track towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5.