Dame Amaechi Canvassses Patronage of Approved Ante-Natal Clinics

Women, in Rivers State, have been charged to attend  antenatal clinics in approved hospitals to forstall maternal and infant mortality.

Wife of the state governor, Mrs Judith Amaechi, gave the charge at the opening ceremony of a capacity building programme helping babies breath, for health workers at the Bralthwaite Memonial Specialist Hospitals, (BMSH), on neonatal resuscitation during birth.

Mrs Amaechi noted that neonatal resuscitation training was pivoted in the reaching of health workers techniques that would help them in assessing newborns during critical periods at birth.

She lamented that the dearth of qualified health workers in neonatal resuscitation accounted for the alarming rate of nowborn deaths adding that pregnant women and newborn die more in the rural areas as a result of religious beliefs and ignorance.

She stated that the programme was an initiative between empowerment support initiative (ESI) the state Ministry of Health and American-based physicians for peace and stressed ESI’s readiness to partner with health institutions to address  maternal and infant deaths due to traditional and other related beliefs.

She also said that ESI would organize The Helping the Baby Breath training programme in the three senatorial districts of the state to enable health workers in the rural areas avail themselves the opportunity this new initiative  provides.

In his address the State Commissioner for Health, Tamunoyona Parker, revealed that six children out of every 100 die within the first week of life and expressed worry that this happens mostly with pregnant women who refused to attend antenatal or give birth to their babies in government hospitals.

He however, stated that though the statistics were alarming, the state government would ensure that no child dies at birth adding that in addition to the financial  incentive women who attend antenatal and immunize their children at government healthcare facilities, government was putting in place other measures to ensure the safety of both mothers and their babies during deliveries and discouraged women from patronizing prayer houses and traditional birth attendants, saying they lack the expertise to handle crises.

Also speaking, the co-ordinator, physicians for peace and programme facilitators, Ugo Umejuru pointed out that half of the neonatal deaths occur in developing countries including Nigeria, stating that 80 percent of neonatal deaths occurred in babies born outside the hospital.

He promised that physicians for peace would provide health workers training in internally recognized newborn resuscitation methods to help babies’ death.

Tonye Nria-Dappa