… UNICEF pledges more support for improved health sector
As Nigeria loses about 2,300 under five-year olds and 145 women of childbearing age daily, the United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF) has renewed its commitment to support the Nigerian health sector towards improving maternal and child health.
To this end, it plans to strengthen immunisation and revitalisation of primary healthcare system in the country.
Omar Abdi, deputy executive director, programme, UNICEF, made this known while meeting with Isacc Adewole, minister of health, in Abuja.
According to a recent UNICEF report, every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under five-year olds and 145 women of childbearing age, making it the second largest contributor to the under–five and maternal mortality rate in the world.
“UNICEF and Federal Ministry of Health have long history of partnership in improving healthcare system in Nigeria; however, our visit to the minister was to renew our commitment and to ensure that our plans were in line with the minister’s priority,” Abdi said.
“Sharing ideas between the Hon Minister and UNICEF may offer solutions to some of the numerous challenges confronting the Nigerian health sector,” Abdi said.
Speaking further, member of the delegation, Marie Pierre Poirier, UNICEF West and Central Africa regional office, Dakar, Republic of Senegal, said UNICEF considered Nigeria as very important country in West and Central African region.
She noted, “We sought for a conversation with you to hear your vision and strategy so that we can support it, we want to set specific objectives, which would include immunisation component which may support the fight against polio in the country.
“We want your guidance, we are on the process of shaping the next five years programme, so we want to make sure that what we want to do in the health sector in Nigeria is in line with your priority, but also we shall together define it in terms of actual result that we would achieve on children.”
Responding, Adewole, who appreciated the support of UNICEF in the fight against polio, child survival, prevention of mother to child HIV/AIDS transmission and nutrition, said, “Investing on primary health care system at the community level was the only way to improve the health indices of Nigeria.
“When you look at our healthcare indicator, our problem is not the rich, not the educated, 95 percent of educated Nigerians receive antenatal care, 20 percent of the poor receive antenatal care, so we want to truly address maternal mortality, we must focus on the rural and the poor, same goes for immunisation, the rich can take care of themselves, they can take the next available flight out of Nigeria access care but the poor have nowhere to go.”
The minister urged the UNICEF to support in building capacity of health extension workers working at the primary health care centres in the communities, this according to him, would help in achieving the objective of Saving One Million Lives Programme for Result Initiative aimed at improving the health of mothers and children.
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