- As Nigeria rates as 3rd child mortality nation after India, Pakistan
By Mustapha Suleiman
A Non-Governmental Organisation (NG0): Golden Change for Concerned Youths Forum (GCCYF), with support from Child Health Foundation based in the United States (US) have concluded a capacity development for community health extension in Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The training was to hone the health workers on pre-term birth complication management and pneumonia diagnosis / treatment aimed at reducing maternal mortality rate and neonatal deaths.
Speaking at the well-attended event, the Director Primary Health Care of Kwali Area Council, Dr. Samuel Adudu, expressed optimism that the healthcare workers who attended the training will have their capacity improved, especially regarding the management of pneumonia in children and in the use of pulse oximeter to measure oxygen saturation.
According to him, participants at the training will also be given a picture of whether there is post psycobia or not which he said it’s very critical in either managing the children outpatients or referring to higher centre.
He said: “Of course, the training also captured whether there is a need for admission and when there is any need for admission, or will be referred to a secondary health facility.
The training, he added is very impactful because about 4 million children die yearly from respiratory tract infections and most them are from developing countries of which Nigeria is one.
So, it will go a long way in helping in building the capacity of our staff in managing respiratory tract infections, especially pneumonia.
Adudu, suggested that the training should be replicated in other Area Councils, saying it will help build the capacity of the staff in managing respiratory tract infections especially in children.
The Director and former Head of Gwagwalada Area Council, Dr. Adeyemi Adeniran, said that he decided to participate at the training programme because of its immense contribution to primary health development and to support Golden Change for Concerned Youths Forum.
Dr Adenira said, “They are holding training on grass root health issues from Kwali Area Council down to my council.’’
Also speaking, the President of the NGO, Mr. Ngwakwe Williams, said the essence of the gathering is to train community care providers on health management in pneumonia diagnosis and treatment.
“You will agree with me that the maternal mortality rate of Nigeria is one of the highest apart from India and Pakistan that have higher maternal mortality rate in the world. Nigeria is next! That is not acceptable we must do all we can to ensure we improve primary health care in Nigeria.’’ He said.
Williams, lamented that healthcare providers after many years of being employed are not trained, calling on government to make adequate budget available in order to train and retrain health workers.
According to him. “This is because new disease is being discovered, like recently we had Corona Virus, it is a virus that nobody has no previous knowledge of how to handle, so, if people are not trained on how to manage this, it will lead to many deaths.’’
He commended and thank the child health foundation of USA who have supported the NGO to train one of the FCT community health extension workers to improve health service and care within the Kwali Area Council.
Ngawakwe, however complained of the shortage of health workers across the country, saying: “We discovered that in many health centres, one person is responsible for providing health care to several people, therefore, they need to employ more health workers in order to improve our health centres because primary care is the most that is needed to be taken of.’’
The NGO distributed 2100 pieces of birthing kits to all the community health extension workers to institutionalize clean birth and antenatal at the facilities.