The Nasarawa State Government says it would domesticate the National Guideline on the eradication of Maternal and Child Mortality.
Dr Ibrahim Alhassan, Director, Public Health in the state’s Ministry of Health, disclosed this at a three-day meeting organised for stakeholders in the health sector.
The meeting was organised by an NGO, Care International, under its project, ”Catalysing Strengthening Policy Action for Healthy Diets and Resilience (CASCADE)”, on Tuesday in Lafia.
Alhassan explained that stakeholders during the meeting agreed to work with the government toward the domestication of the guidelines in the state.
He, however, added that the guidelines would be reviewed toward its smooth implementation, given the peculiarity of the state.
“This strategies will help us identify deaths of all mothers as a result of pregnancy and children from zero to five years.
“If we identified the causes of the deaths, we will interrogate the process to ascertain the possible strategies to prevent reoccurrence.
“This intervention is a no blame strategy to identify causes of deaths in order to put up mitigating measures to guard against future occurrence,” Alhassan said.
The director further explained that the stakeholders would produce a document that would work toward addressing the unacceptable rate of maternal and child mortality in the state.
“Healthcare workers as well as other stakeholders will be on the look out for cases, causes and ways to prevent maternal and child mortality in the state based on the new document,”he said.
Also speaking, Mr Isaac Ishaya-Audu, Programme Manager of CASCADE, said that the move would tackle aviodable deaths in the state.
He added that his organisation would continue to complement the efforts of government and other partners toward ensuring woman and children get access to balanced diets with ease.
He promised to ensure a gender transformative approach toward addressing the social norms that denies women free access to quality diet.
“We are also empowering women through nutrition sensitive agricultural practices to help them take advantage of the local food around them to prepare balanced diets,” he said.
The Programme Manager explained that Care International, was currently working in 18 Local Government Areas across Bauchi, Jigawa, Kebbi and Nasarawa States.
“We are also working with private service providers engaged by the government to supply nutritional foods to primary school pupils to ensure standard nutritional practices,” he added.
On his part, Dr Emmanuel Okpe, the Surveillance Officer of World Health Organisation (WHO) in the state, lauded the state government and other partners for accepting to domesticate the guidelines.
He explained that the state would now be better prepared to gather more reliable data that would help them respond promptly to tackle causes of maternal and child mortality in the state.
He pledged WHO continued support to the state toward ensuring that the people get better and affordable healthcare services. (NAN).
