Dr Ado Mohammed, the Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency said N150 million was being spent monthly on the new Midwifery Service Scheme (MSS).
Mohammed said in Gwagwalada on Friday at the end of a training for the medical officers on Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care, that the scheme had attracted global attention.
“The federal government is paying N150 million as allowance to the midwives; the scheme has been judged globally as the largest human resource intervention recently and the scheme has received several awards.”
He said its introduction had led to increase in patient’s access to health facilities, skilled deliveries and had ensured low maternal and child deaths.
Mohammed said the agency would scale-up the scheme this year “to ensure that women do not die during child birth”.
He noted however that the indices on maternal and child health in the country was “nothing to be proud of”, saying a lot still needed to be done to bridge the gap.
Mohammed said the federal government had since directed the agency to commence the implementation of the health component of the maternal and child programme.
According to him, the proceeds from the fuel subsidy removal would be channelled to the agency to run what would be call “MSS Plus’’.
Also, Dr Abdullahi Mohammed, Director, Primary Health Care System Development, said the agency would collaborate with hospitals to train more doctors on emergency obstetric care.
Mohammed said the training was initiated in 2009 to also reduce maternal mortality.
He advocated more collaboration with referral hospitals for better primary health care services in the country.
In his remarks, Dr Peter Alabi, the Chief Medical Director, University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada promised to ensure that what the doctors learnt was put into practice.
Alabi said the hospital has enough manpower and would collaborate with the agency to achieve the goals of the programme.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the MSS was introduced in 2010 by the federal government as part of efforts to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the country.
More than 4,000 midwives had been deployed to 1,000 health facilities nationwide under the MSS. (NAN)