Maternal and Child Health Receives Boost in Northern Nigeria

Minister of State for Health Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate has said that   maternal and child health in Northern Nigeria will received a boost as the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and Partnership for Reviving Routine Immunization in Northern Nigeria and Maternal and Newborn and Child Health (PRRINN-MNCH) collaborated to provide emergency services to pregnant women in the rural areas in the Northern Nigeria.

The Minister made this known over the weekend, in Abuja in a keynote address at the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the PRRINN-MNCH and NURTW on how to accelerate provision of Transport Service to pregnant women on emergency.

The Minister said that the partnership between the two organizations will complement Federal Government effort in providing maternal and child healthcare service in the rural area.

He said that there are socio-economic disparities between rural and urban duelers in Nigeria adding that women in the rural areas have the highest risk of dying during child birth than those living in the urban centres.

However, the Minister said that the Federal Government has deployed Midwives and community health workers to the rural areas across the country to assist pregnant women.

Earlier, the President, National Union of Road Transport Workers Union (NURTW) Alh. Najeem Usman said that studies have shown that one of the barrier that delay women from getting to health facility in the rural area is lack of transport.

To bridge the gap, he said the NURTW and PRRINN-MNCH in collaboration with the Jigawa, Katsina, Yobe and Zamfara  state governments decided to set up an Emergency Transport Scheme (ETS) to ease the suffering of women and minimize maternal complication caused through delay in reaching health facility.

Alhaji Usman also noted that MOU was to expand the Emergency Transport Services (ETS) initiative to the entire rural communities in the country.

To achieve the overall goal of reducing the high maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria, the ETS need to be scaled up beyond the four states”, he said.