By Martins Ifijeh
Recently, over 600 pregnant women from 16 communities in the South-east and South-south regions of the country benefitted from a maternal health initiative that aims at reducing the spate of maternal mortality in the country. As part of the exclusive packages for participation, they were given free safe delivery kits which contained all necessary items and consumables that women need during delivery and also for their babies. This was in addition to talks on maternal health delivery by a team of medical experts.
The programme, which held across six states, was put together by one of Nigeria’s telecommunications operator, Etisalat and a non-governmental organisation for maternal and child health, Traffina Foundation. The beneficiary states include Imo, Enugu, Anambra, Delta, Edo and Cross River States.
The CSR-based initiative was part of concerted efforts directed at arresting the growing scourge of maternal mortality which a 2014 United Nations Report puts at 62 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the Report, Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 – 2013, released in 2014 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Bank and the UN Population Division, about 289,000 women worldwide died in 2013 during pregnancy or childbirth, and 62 per cent of those deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.
In the same year, the maternal mortality ratio in developing countries was 230 women per 100,000 births to 16 women per 100,000 in developed countries. According to the report about three million newborns die each year across the globe and there were 2.6 million stillbirths, with Africa accounting for more than half of both numbers.
The details of the report were no less enchanting or surprising. Nigeria, with the largest population in Africa and, more worrisome, a relatively dismal healthcare delivery programme, is responsible for about 13 per cent of the global maternal deaths with an estimated 36,000 women dying in pregnancy or at child birth yearly.
The facts above were contained in the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2013 report, which also noted that 70 per cent of maternal deaths in the country results from four cited causes namely, haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis and abortion complications. It also states that 51 per cent of pregnant women had at least four antenatal care visits, while only 38 percent of the annual 6.6 million births in Nigeria were assisted by a skilled attendant.
These realities were corroborated by HRH, Raphael Nnana Oparaochaekwe, Eze Ebube Dike of Ulakwo Autonomous Community in Owerri North, Imo State, whose community played host to the Imo leg of the programme. “The rate at which pregnant women die here is very alarming,” he lamented.
Admittedly, a lot of efforts have been and are still being channeled into improving the country’s maternal health status. This has translated into a huge financial cost accruing basically from manpower training and renovation and equipping of primary health facilities. Interestingly, these efforts do not seem to provide a well-rounded solution to maternal deaths, the reason being that the core people at the heart of the discuss, who inevitably are at the receiving end, are hardly given proper thoughts.
The Chairman of Calabar South Local Government Council in Cross River State, Mrs. Majorie Henshaw Asuquo, summed this up when the council hosted the Calabar leg.
“We already have well-equipped health centres, as well as birth attendants, but no specific attention on the pregnant women themselves, we have never really touched the pregnant women themselves, those carrying the babies. Now, we have everything complete; patients, facilities and personnel. It’s symbolic and I am pleased that they will have safe delivery,” she stated.
The worst hit sections of the country are mainly the rural communities, and this is largely for several reasons, but mainly ignorance and poverty. A good number of rural dwellers are resistant to the concept of family planning which favours birth spacing and control. In some other instances, the harmful effects of traditional birth practices are undermined because of the lure of ‘payment by kind’.
Curbing the ill-wind would require a multi-level approach that would involve all stakeholders, including community leaders, political leaders, family heads, health workers, traditional health attendants (TBA), advocacy groups and well-meaning corporate citizens like Etisalat Nigeria which has carved a niche for itself with various intervention programmes. A robust partnership among the various stakeholders is required for the desired effects.
Speaking in this light recently, the Head, Government and Community Relations, Etisalat Nigeria, Mohammed Suleh-Yusuf, said the company’s intervention with the maternal health initiative was a direct reflection of its belief in quality partnership and support for on-going efforts towards producing a healthy citizenry.
His words, “Etisalat believes that the provision of quality health to Nigerians must not be borne by the government alone, thus we have chosen to support mothers, children and adolescents in our communities with quality medical aid. We are proud to be able to contribute positively to achieving the government’s objective of improved quality health care and we will continue to collaborate with government to move states and indeed the nation forward, even as we work towards being the telecommunications partner of choice for Nigeria.”
“In the last seven years of operation in Nigeria, the company has not left anyone in doubt of what other benefits, beside the core telecommunications interests, it is committed to offering Nigerians, and this is evident in various sectors where its footprints have become pathways for others.
As a corporate citizen unreservedly given over to people-focused initiatives and guided by an internal culture of responsibility, the company is fast proving to be the hoped-for brand with care for people a front-burner priority. It has relished this intimidating responsibility with zest,” he noted.
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