*To pay mothers N5, 000 for delivering at health centres, immunizing baby*Midwives to receive N40, 000AS part of efforts to reduce maternal and child deaths in the country and meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, the Federal Government, through its Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE P) in partnership with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) is mobilizing additional midwives and Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) to complement the Midwives Service Scheme (MSS).MDG 4 is to reduce under-five child mortality rate by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, while MDG 5 is to reduce maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015.The SURE P is a three to four-year programme designed to mitigate the immediate impact of the removal of fuel subsidy and accelerate economic growth through investments in critically needed infrastructure.The SURE P mother and child health (MCH) component, after completing a pilot project at Karu Primary Health Care (PHC) Centre in Abuja, is to pay pregnant mothers N5, 000 between the period of registering for antenatal care (ANC) at a PHC and bringing the newborn for complete immunization; while the newly recruited midwives will receive N40,000 which will be complimented by N20,000 from state government, and N10,000 plus accommodation from the local council.A member of the SURE P committee, Prof. Kunle Ade Wahab, at a four-day orientation for the SURE P MCH midwives and CHEWs from the South South, South East and South West zones, which will be concluded today in Ibadan, said SURE P is the programme of the federal government designed to intervene in the lives of Nigerians by raising the quality of lives through the removal of the subsidy on fuel.Wahab said: 'The SURE P committee is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the savings from the increase in the pump price, that is, the amount that is reverted back to government, are being using to pursue some life-supporting programmes that are very germane to the transformation agenda of Mr. President.''It covers six major areas. The health sector for example covers mother and child care. You know that is where we all started and we believe if you put that one right everything will be right with us particularly with our rural women.'He added: 'I am here because of this important MCH programme and as I said in the hierarchy of SURE P funding of some of these projects, the one in the health sector particularly we are not able to catch up with the MDG programmes and where they have some stresses those were put in and we think MCH is a very important aspect of it particularly in the rural areas where even if they attend ante natal clinic during childbirth, they don't return back to check themselves up.''So we are funding the services of midwives that are in some of the rural areas particularly so that they can visit and revisit, stay with our women when they are giving birth to a child and encourage them. Some of them were even being encouraged with cash to return and check themselves up.'NPHCDA's Zonal coordinator for South West, Dr. Oladimeji Olayinka, said the NPHCDA is an arm of the Federal Ministry of Health that is actually saddled with the coordination of PHC activities in Nigeria. 'As a result of that we have a lot of interventions aimed at promoting the health of the people in general, particularly the women and children. As such the national MSS initiated in 2009 with funds from the MDGs has been on the table for a long time now. It is one of those interventions aimed at reducing maternal and child mortality in Nigeria that has been proven to be highly effective and has the tendency to actually reduce this abysmal rate that we are talking about today, the poor indices that we record in the maternal and child health. We are talking about high mortality for the mothers during delivery and poor survival rate of the newborn and children generally,' he said.Olayinka added: 'Today is orientation of the first batch of the SURE P supported midwives. We are carrying out the orientation of these midwives and documenting them. What we do is that we give them orientation, inform them on conditions and circumstances under which we are going to work and document them generally by carrying out biometrics.''Today we have about 188 midwives. They are all over the country because earlier on there were interviews and screening of the midwives who applied for the programme. Then shortlisting process was carried out in Abuja and these midwives were posted to various parts of the country. So of course we give priority to the state of origin of the midwife so that they can work within the communities if possible but, when not possible, we post them to other areas.'Olayinka said three of these orientation programmes are going on in the three South zones, that is, in Enugu for South East, in Benin for South South, and in Ibadan for South West.He said the MSS ordinarily places midwives at the disposal of the local councils at the PHC facilities to increase the manpower availability of the PHC centres, but the SURE P goes a few step further than that. Olayinka said the SURE P, apart from providing the manpower, seeks to increase access to these facilities by placing CHEWs, which was not done in this part of the country before, to actually mobilise the pregnant women to the hospitals and it is also introducing for the first time conditional cash transfer (CCT). 'CCT is a process whereby financial access is granted women, that is, an amount of money totaling about N5000 on the whole is provided to the women at various stages, initially N1000 upon registration later another N1000 before delivery, N2000 during delivery and another N1000 after delivery that upon completion of immunization schedule for the child,' the NPHCDA zonal coordinator said.Olayinka said the MSS programme has five clusters, that is, five local councils in each of the six states of the South West zone. He said SURE P is only expanding the scope of the MSS to cover additional three clusters, that is, three additional local councils are now added per state for the programme.Beatrice Iyiola is a retired midwife. She is among the chosen ones. 'I have been practicing in private hospitals. I just decided to come back and join the SURE P now because government is really bringing incentives into it and ready to take care of mothers and babies now and they have put in much to redevelop the community,' Beatrice said.She added: 'Initially I wanted to join some organisations and even if it means helping this nation to do it for free I wanted to do it because some pregnant women are suffering and some are dying because they don't have money to go to hospitals. Even private hospitals are not making thingd easier because the money is so exorbitant they cannot afford it. Now the FG has started something to put in money into the programme and they are able to help both the mother and children, it is a laudable programme and I want to join it.'Chinemelum Onyinye, a nursing mother from Enugu state is one of the selected midwives for the SURE P MCH programme. 'I decided to join PHC because I love saving lives especially lives of women, pregnant women. That was why I did midwifery because I love taking care of mothers in their pregnancy, when they are pregnant, seeing that they deliver safely. So that is why I joined and I love taking care of poor people, helping the poor because I feel God helps one through that,' she said.Chinemelum added: 'I see great commitment from government to making the programme work, it is doing its best to see that health reaches the rural areas, to the poor women in rural areas.'Coming from Enugu is far but I am determined to help pregnant women and mothers survive. My husband is at Enugu with my other children.
Click here to read full news..
