Health experts advocate free maternal health services in Nigeria

To reduce the high maternal mortality rate in Nigeria, the government should prioritize health and ensure free access to maternal health services especially in rural communities, some health experts have advocated.

The expert who spoke during the one-day summit themed ‘Re-Echoing Voices for Family Planning Funding and the Need to Create Free Maternal Health Services by incoming Political Leaders’ agreed that access to free maternal care is the main way to stop the country’s high mortality rate.

The summit is organized by Association of Nigerian Health Journalists (ANHEJ) with the support of Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale (PACFaH@scale), supported by the Center for Research and Development Projects (dRPC).

Speaking at the summit on Thursday, the President, Association for Reproductive & Family Health (ARFH), Oladapo Ladipo, said it was important for government to put health issues at the forefront to ensure meaningful development in the country.

Mr Ladipo said health is a human right and that without health “wisdom cannot be realised”.

He said that making health the number one priority on the government’s agenda would help reduce challenges in the sector.

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Also, he explained that adequate funds are needed to provide quality health services and reduce maternal mortality.

“Maternal death in Nigeria is a shame; we have everything we need to correct it,” he said.

“Women make up about 50 percent of the country’s population and no woman should die in childbirth,” he said.

Mother’s Death

Nigeria’s Maternal Mortality Rate is still among the highest in the world, with an estimated 512 deaths per 100,000 live births.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa says one in seven global maternal deaths occurs in Nigeria. That’s more than 50,000 women die every year in Nigeria.

About 95 percent of deaths during childbirth are preventable.

Explore family planning

Mr Ladipo said Family Planning (FP) services should also be made free and compulsory for all women of reproductive age.

He said a woman should have no more than three children and they should be well spaced.

They say this will ensure a woman’s body gets the rest it needs to survive.

Also, the Chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), Ejike Orji, said the lack of access and utilization of FP services in Nigeria should be the concern of every patriotic Nigerian.

Orji, who is also the focus of FP2030 in Nigeria, said the country will create a new leader “who will control and allocate resources.”

He said he needs to understand the climate in the ecosystem while taking the leadership paddle at all levels.

“Since the FP began to secure the budget line in the Federal Ministry of Health, the allocation for this important service for humanity has never reached 1 percent of the health budget,” he said.

He said there should be policies to reverse the dire trend, as poor funding can lead to maternal deaths.

In his words, the Program Director at the PACFaH@ scale, Stanley Ukpai, said the FP blueprint will expire in 2024, but the prevalence rate of 27 percent has not been achieved.

Mr. Ukpai said the new administration should consider ways to manage the population to see how it can contribute to the country’s productivity.

“And there are policies and systems implemented by the office of the vice president in the human capital development process.

“When we talk about population management, all this includes so that the population we already have will start contributing to the economic process and productivity and take Nigeria through this recovery process,” he said.