Wife of the governor of Lagos State, Ibijoke Sanwo Olu has said that the state government would improve budgetary allocation to maternal, newborn and child health services as part of efforts to provide quality care and accessible maternal, new-born and child health interventions across public and private health facilities in the state.
Sanwo-Olu stated this during the flag-off of the 2019 Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) week which held at the Lagos Island local government secretariat last weekend. According to her, the government would also be stepping up efforts at the provision of user-friendly atmosphere across all health facilities in the state through continuous capacity building of health workers on personal effectiveness and etiquette
“Our plans amongst others include massive and aggressive capacity building of knowledge and skills of our healthcare workers to be able to offer evidenced-based healthcare services to our citizens, renovation and revamping of all Primary Healthcare System in the State to be able to gain public confidence through the provision of high standard healthcare services and improving access to basic screening and prevention of premature deaths through the state health scheme”.
“We will continue to provide life-saving commodities and consumables in public health facilities to be able to address emergencies and life-threatening situations and address the existing human resource challenges and motivation of dedicated health workers,” said the Lagos first lady.
The governor’s wife, who is a medical doctor, added that promoting women empowerment and education for the girl-child as well as promoting adequate nutrition interventions for all citizens of the State especially nursing and expectant mothers will be given top priority.
Sanwo-Olu urged all mothers and care givers to take advantage of the MNCH week which commenced on Monday, November 25, 2019 to access all free maternal, new-born and child health services offered in all primary health centres across the state.
“Services to be rendered free of charge include; routine immunization as well as immunisation for defaulters or zero dose cases, vitamin A supplementation to at least 90 percent of children between 6-59 months de-worming of children between the ages of 12 to 59 months, malnutrition screening, counseling of care givers on Infant & Young child feeding and food demonstration”.
“The pregnant women, nursing mothers and women of child bearing age, will also be provided with blood building drugs and family planning services. There will also be counseling sessions for men and women on adequate nutrition, birth preparedness, healthy-lifestyle, personal hygiene, exclusive breast feeding, complimentary feeding, hand washing, malaria prevention, Tetanus Toxoid and family planning services”, the wife the governor said.
She explained that non-prescriptive family planning commodities as well as informative materials on key household and community practices such as birth preparedness, management of fever, control of diarrhoea, proper waste disposal, adequate complementary feeding, hand washing, malaria prevention, family planning, exclusive breast feeding amongst other will be distributed during the week.
“To this effect, I wish to lend my voice by appealing to our community, religious and traditional leaders to take this MNCH Week with all the seriousness it deserves. This is because our collective effort is needed to secure our future by preventing the occurrence of deaths of mothers and children from preventable causes. Let us all join hands to ensure that all caregivers, women, nursing mothers, girls and men seize this opportunity by visiting the designated centres to access these free health interventions. All the PHCs will be opened from 8am to 4pm daily, while 24-hour services will be ongoing at the flagship PHCs during this laudable Week and even after the Week-long celebration”, Sanwo-Olu said.
Commissioner for health, Akin Abayomi noted that government has put in place various measures to ensure an effective health care system to tackle the twin issue of maternal and child mortality in the state.
He added that the MNCH week is targeted at improving the health seeking behaviour of all the citizens of the State by increasing awareness to key household and community practices.
“We have a target to reach, and we have completed the procurement and distribution of materials at the local government and ward level. We will also visit schools, market places so that we can reach as much women and children as possible,” said Abayomi.
JOSHUA BASSEY
