Date Published: 12/13/10

Ondo invests N568 Safe Motherhood

Ondo State government has injected the sum of N568 million into the Safe Motherhood Project in the state. It has also registered over 200,000 pregnant women and children across 12 local government areas and treated about 20,000 out patients free of charge at the Mother and Child Hospital within the past nine months.

These achievements, according to the state Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, were made possible by keying into funds from National Health Insurance Scheme and the Millennium Development Goal programme on Tuesday in Abuja while delivering a lecture on “Mobilising Resources for Achieving MDG-5 in Nigerian States, the Ondo State Example” during which he he also bagged an Award of Excellence in the Delivery of Maternal Health Care” at the occasion declared that the Mother and Child Hospital model was wholly funded by the State government.

According to the Governor, “Community mobilisation, participation and advocacy are important components that will ensure sustenance of these various strategies. Safe Motherhood project (ABIYE Project) was to develop sustainable equity-based health care services that will provide universal access to the people. Perhaps nothing highlights the importance of prudent management of human resources more than the Mother and Child Hospital model that will be replicated in other health facilities offering maternity services in the state.

“The value of the free and qualitative services at ABIYE Centres and Mother and Child Hospital will serve as a motivation for the informal sector to contribute to their sustenance via Community Health Insurance Schemes. Our aim was to reduce Child mortality by 50 per cent, Maternal mortality also by 50 per cent and increase facility utilization by 60 per cent in 2011.

“Within nine months of operation, 17,220 out-patients including 10,300 children under five years of age and 6,920 pregnant women were attended to and treated under this programme in addition to 3,235 safe deliveries including 521 Caesarian sections and 1,876 Pediatric admissions. The available resources if applied judiciously can achieve MDG-5 in record time” the governor stated.

Dr Mimiko told the gathering that the passion which his administration has for the provision of quality health care services for the electorate necessitated the construction of over 80 basic health facilities under the Community-driven development programme called 3is Initiative, initiating an Emergency Medical Services Scheme complete with a high grade Trauma Centre, ambulance services and Call centre as well as establishment of a world class Gani Fawehinmi Diagnostic Centre for early detection and diagnosis of medical conditions.

On the sustenance of this programme, the governor said the introduction of a Health Tax Bill will form additional pool of resources for its sustainability.

“For an adult population of one million, a health tax amounting to N200 per capita per annum of less than N20 per month will be able to cover the cost of providing free health care services for 30,000 parturient projected annually and cost of care would amount to N200 million” he asserted.