Saving Lives Through Improved Healthcare

In a dramatic move, the Federal Government
recently initiated a programme, which aims at saving one million lives via
improved health care delivery for all Nigerians.

The three-year initiative, from 2012 to 2015, represents
an important paradigm shift in the government’s health policy.

Experts say that the programme marks a shift from the
previous orientation, which focused primarily on inputs and processes such as
buildings and equipment, skilled manpower and availability of drugs, to one
that focuses on health outcomes through live-saving strategies.

The crusade fight to make available essential health
care services to women and children across that globe started when the United
Nations (UN) Commission on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children initiated
plans to save 16 million lives by 2015.

Observers say that the “Saving One Million Lives’’
initiative is a laudable programme aimed at transforming health care delivery
in the country.

The Minister of State for Health, Dr Muhammad Pate, said
that the country’s health care delivery system could only be adjudged as
efficient and effective if diseases could be cured, while the citizens’ lives
were saved from preventable disease or deaths.

Pate said that the “Saving One Million Lives’’
initiative was based on evidence-based, cost-effective interventions which
could address the leading causes of maternal or child morbidity and mortality.

He said that the initiative comprised eight components,
adding that the 10 recommendations of the UN Commission on Life Saving
Commodities for Women and Children regarding 13 under-utilised essential
commodities were fully embedded in the initiative’s components.

“The initiative particularly aims at improving maternal,
newborn and child health through the delivery of an integrated package of
interventions at thousands of primary health care clinics with referral links
across the country.

“We are working to increase the rate of antenatal care
attendance, skilled supervision at child delivery centres and availability of
critical commodities for treating postpartum haemorrhage, eclampsia and
promoting reproductive health.

“The SURE-P MCH (Mother and Child) programme has
successfully started a conditional cash-transfer mechanism that has shown
remarkable results, with 100-per-cent increase in uptake in the participating
primary healthcare centres,’’ he said.

Pate said that the initiative aimed at improving routine
immunisation coverage and eradicating poliomyelitis, while the Federal
Government in June introduced pentavalent vaccines that would protect millions
of children against preventable disease

He said that in 2013, pneumococcal vaccines for the
prevention of pneumonia would be introduced, thus expanding the scope of
ongoing efforts to save more lives.

“Vaccines remain among the most cost-effective public
interventions.

“As part of our efforts to scale up prevention from
mother-to-child HIV transmission, we will increase access to quality HIV
testing and counselling as well as treatment of infected mothers, while
exploring the feasibility of giving universal access to HIV treatment to all
those infected,’’ he said.

The minister said that as part of efforts to scale up
access to essential medicines, the Federal Government was working towards
improving the children’s access to diarrhoea treatment.

For malaria control, the government, through the Nigeria
Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), is also planning to increase people’s
utilisation of insecticide-treated bed nets, while enhancing the people’s
access to effective anti-malarial medicines.

Besides, the government is planning to improve child
nutrition, while treating children with severe malnutrition.

In this year alone, the Federal Government has provided
more than 30 million doses of Vitamin A micro-nutrient supplements to
children under the age of five.

The country’s health care delivery to women and children
will soon receive a boost, as President Goodluck Jonathan pledged his
administration’s commitment to addressing issues relating to maternal and child
mortality while launching the “Saving One Million Lives’’ initiative on October
16.

“Increased domestic funding for life-saving commodities
is a key area of commitment we are pursuing in this administration.

“We are committed to a total of 33.4 billion U.S.
dollars (about N5 trillion) over the next four years for the procurement of
additional reproductive health commodities, representing a 300-per-cent
domestic funding increase.

“We have also set aside half a billion dollars (about
N75 billion) over the next four years for maternal, new born and child health
intervention under the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme
(SURE-P).

“This is in addition to increased commitment of 68
million dollars (about N10.2 billion) for polio control and routine
immunisation programmes.

“In our efforts to improve access to life-saving
commodities for women and children, particularly the vulnerable population, the
Federal Government in April 2011, removed user fees from contraceptives in
public health facilities.

“This has led to a dramatic increase in the demand for
contraceptives in public health facilities by more than 150 per cent,’’ he
added.

Jonathan, however, solicited the support of development
partners in developing essential medicines to scale up plans in tackling
diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia.

He noted that the three diseases accounted for of 55 per
cent of deaths of under-five children in the country.

Explaining why he was so passionate about issues
regarding maternal and child mortality, the president said that his mother gave
birth to nine children, out of which only himself and his elder sister were
alive today.

“Seven of my siblings died as infants and sometimes;
when I remember their faces as infants, I imagine that they could have grown up
into pretty young ladies and handsome men.

“That I am alive today is the handiwork of God; it is
not by any human intervention.

“So, as a person, I am quite passionate to be part of
anything which the government, corporate bodies or international organisations
are doing to save the lives of women and children.

“Probably, I am even luckier, some people of my age even
lost their mothers and some grew up as orphans.

“So, I am quite pleased with what we are doing here
today and I have to sincerely thank my good friend, the Prime Minister of
Norway, for his generous contribution to the initiative,’’ Jonathan said.

Mrs Angel Hanson, who represented the Norwegian
government, announced a donation 2.5 million U.S dollars (about N375 million)
over five years to the “Saving One Million Lives’’ initiative during its
launch,

Hanson said that Norway, with its mobilisation of human
resources and prudent resource management, became one of the most prosperous
countries in Europe.

She expressed Norway’s happiness with the proactive
policies of the Nigerian government that were aimed at developing the country’s
human resources for national development.

The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
underscored the need to overcome the challenges facing Nigeria’s health system
and improve the quality of health care delivery to the citizens.

She said that in spite of recent the gains recorded in
the health sector, there was an imperative need to fast-track efforts to attain
the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The minister noted that it had been estimated that
approximately one million women and children died annually in Nigeria due to
preventable diseases and causes, putting the socioeconomic future of the
country at risk.

Okonjo-Iweala stressed the need for the adoption of a
new approach to address Nigeria’s health outcomes and harness its demographic
potential as necessary drivers for the country’s sustainable growth.

She said that Nigeria’s population was projected to
double in 20 years, while increasing by 146 per cent in 2050 to about 400
million, making it the 4th most populous country in the world.

She said that the expected population boom would be
largely driven by very high fertility rates which had persisted over the last
30 years.

Okonjo-Iweala said that the “Saving One Million Lives’’
initiative presented a renewed strategy for improving health outcomes,
particularly for women and children.

“The mothers and children we save today will build a
more prosperous Nigeria in the future and enhance Nigeria’s aspiration to
become one of the world’s largest 20 economies by 2020,’’ she said.

The minister said that the procedures of the initiative
were directed at improving the lives of millions of women, their children and
their families, while shaping future fertility patterns.

In addition, Okonjo-Iweala stressed that accelerating
the decline in fertility rates would trigger changes in the age-structure of
Nigeria’s population, adding, however, that this was beneficial to the
country’s development.

She emphasised that inadequate access to life-saving
commodities constituted a big threat to the lives of Nigerian women and
children.

Okonjo-Iweala, nonetheless, noted that the Federal
Government was addressing these challenges through the National Health
Strategic Development Plan (NHSDP), which aimed at improving the citizens’ health
status through a purposeful health care delivery system.

“The ‘Saving One Million Lives’ initiative is a
culmination of efforts in the health sector to improve delivery of health
outcomes and address critical challenges so as to improve the wellbeing of
women and children,’’ she said.

Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez, the Assistant Administrator for
Global Health in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
said that the U.S. government, through USAID/Nigeria, would support the
initiative’s implementation in Nigeria.

He gave the assurance that the agency would collaborate
with the Federal Ministry of Health to expand safe motherhood and newborn
interventions, including antenatal care, improved child delivery processes as
well as management of obstetric and newborn emergencies, among others.

Pablos-Mendez pledged USAID’s readiness to collaborate
with the ministry and its local partners in efforts to build stronger health
care systems in the country.

He said that partnership would also strive to
consolidate the successes recorded in improving commodity forecasting and
logistics systems, as well as HIV control, malaria control, family planning and
maternal/child health care delivery.

Ofili writes for
Nons Agency of Nigeria (NAN)