FG releases N3bn to train health workers under SURE-P

The Executive Director, National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Ado Mohammed, has said that Federal Government, under its Subsidy Re-investment Empowerment Project of maternal and child health (SURE'P MCH), has so far released N3 billion out of the N15 billion budgeted for the training of health workers across the country.He made the disclosure on Monday in an interactive session with the newsmen, during the orientation exercise held for 200 midwives and community health extension worker recruited from the North-Central zone in Minna, Niger State.Dr Mohammed said that the trained personnel would be posted to 500 SURE-P health facilities.The executive director, who was represented by the project Director of SURE-P, Dr Ugo Okoli, said the intervention programme by the Federal Government was expected to last for the next three years within which 2,000 health workers were expected to be recruited, trained and posted to 1,500 SURE-P facilities across the country.In his remarks, the North-Central Zonal Coordinator of NPHCDA, Dr Wachin Hussain, stated that the goal of the SURE-P MCH was to increase demands and access to maternal and neonatal health service, thereby accelerating progress towards the MDGs 4 & 5, noting that with the intervention programme, millions of lives of mothers and children would be saved.According to him, the SURE-P MCH would improve upon Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) earlier introduced by the Federal Government, saying the programme would also address the demand for conditional cash transfer where payment would be made to pregnant women identified by midwives and village health workers.He added that the introduction of MSS led to an improvement in antenatal visits, skilled attendant at birth, reduction in maternal and neonatal mortality, as well as providing a combination of various levels of health workers for adequate post-natal care and engagement of states and communities through state liaison officers.
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