FG, WHO Set-up
FG, WHO Set-up Committee on Maternal, Perinatal
Database
The Federal Government in collaboration with the World Health
Organisation (WHO) has inaugurated a Maternal and Perinatal Health
Database Committee. The Committee would monitor and generate data
from 48 tertiary institutions on the causes of infant and maternal
mortality in the country.
Speaking at the event in Abuja, the Hon. Minister of Health,
Prof. Isaac Adewole, represented by the Director, Family Health, Dr
Adebimpe Adebiyi, informed that the Committee’s main focus was to
Strengthen Maternal and Perinatal Health Database for improving
Quality of Care during Childbirth (MPHD-4-QED).
Prof. Adewole noted that inauguration of the Committee was an
important milestone in health systems strengthening and medical
death audit to ensure rapid reduction of maternal and perinatal
mortality.
The Minister further said that the database to be used was
designed to capture the death of mothers or babies as well as the
causes of such deaths. “We do not just want to know the number, we
also want to know the causes of the deaths, to enable us take
measures to avoid and prevent such occurrences in the future’’
He added that the database would fast-track reduction of infant
and maternal mortality rate and strengthens the Nigerian health
system, by improving maternal and perinatal health.
The Minister stressed that it would provide a mechanism for
making recommendations for the reduction of maternal and perinatal
mortality. This, according to him, would speed up action by the
Federal Ministry of Health to promptly respond to Maternal, Newborn
and Child Health programming in Nigeria, for the attainment of the
SDGs three and five.
Adewole lauded the World Health Organization for the tremendous
work done over the years towards improving Maternal and Child
Health by giving direction through focused interventions in Nigeria
which culminated in the inauguration.
In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Health, Mr.
Abdulaziz Mashi Abdullahi, who was represented by Dr. Bose
Adeniran, Department of Family Health, said that Quality of Care,
focusing on both the provision of clinical care and the experience
of care by beneficiaries within a strengthened health system, had
been identified as the gap in the provision of quality of care
services in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) framework
on Quality of Care for Mothers and Newborn.
In his Goodwill message, the WHO, Officer in Charge, Nigeria,
Dr. Clement Peters, said that the system would generate a database
that would be used to address the immediate and remote causes of
infant and maternal mortality in the hospitals.
He explained further that the data would be generated from 48
tertiary health facilities across the six geopolitical zones of the
country and it would be expanded gradually to cover the whole
country. It would also assist those working in the facilities to do
simple analysis that would be linked with data analysis tools, Dr.
Peters, added.
Mrs. Boade Akinola
Director, Media and PR