Oyo State government, with the Federal Ministry of Health, is set to tackle the high maternal and newborn deaths through collaborative sector-wide approach (SWAP) focusing on the Kajola, Afijio, Oriire and Ibadan South West local government areas in the state.

The intervention, under the Maternal & Neonatal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII), focuses on 172 local government areas where over 55 per cent of maternal and neonatal deaths in Nigeria are recorded.

Oyo State Health Commissioner Dr Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi, who declared open the MAMII activation workshop in Ibadan, said maternal and child health is a top priority within the Omituntun 2.0 roadmap for sustainable development, with a goal to ensure that no woman dies while giving life and that every child has a healthy start.

According to her, the Oyo government recognises that the complex challenges of maternal and neonatal health cannot be solved in isolation and so values its partnerships with development partners, communities, traditional and religious institutions, civil societies and health workers to design solutions for achieving healthier mothers, safer births and thriving communities.

National Coordinator of SWAP, Dr Muntaqa Sadiq-Umar, represented by Deputy Director of the SWAP Coordination Office, Dr Iyahen Omoruyi, said MAMII, to be driven by the SWAP approach, was borne out of the unacceptably high indices of women and children dying.

He declared: “That is supposed to be the game changer to ensure that we are able to crush maternal and neonatal mortality in the country. Last week, we had covered 30 states. We are trying to round up the engagement meetings with the state, MDAs, and partners in the last two states to find out what the true challenges are and work with the stakeholders, the partners, the government officials, and everybody to co-create solutions to those problems.”

Earlier, Permanent Secretary of the Oyo State Ministry of Health, Dr Akintunde Ayinde, said that the MAMII workshop will offer an opportunity to critically review progress in maternal death reduction, harmonise efforts across all stakeholders and produce an annual operational plan that reflects a collective determination to make maternal deaths a rarity in Oyo State.

At the meeting, Chairman of Oyo State’s Hospital Management Board, Dr Akin Fagbemi, as well as the Executive Secretaries of the Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board and Oyo State Health Insurance Agencies, Dr Muideen Olatunji and Dr Sola Akande, in their respective speeches, assure of their support to MAMII to reverse maternal and infant mortality in the state.

The SWAp Desk Officer, Dr Oluwatunmise Adeagbo, emphasized the sector-wide approach is an initiative of the federal government to strengthen the health system across the board, and one of its initiatives is MAMII to ensure Nigeria is no longer ranked third among the countries that have the highest maternal mortality globally.

“We have been able to identify households where this maternal and newborn death happens. So we’re going to those communities precisely to see what the issues are, come back to sit down, and plan a way to reduce this catastrophe.” (TRIBUNE)