Mortality
By Yashim Katurak
Abuja, Sept. 20, 2018 (NAN) Mr Effiom Effiom, Country Director, Marie Stopes International Organisation Nigeria (MSION), has called on Nigerian elites to support the fight against maternal mortality in the country.
Effiom made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.
He said that the rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria was still at 836 for every 100,000 women, which represented one of the worst indices in the world.
He said that this indices remained high in Nigeria due to the inability of most women especially those living in rural communities to access family planning methods.
Effiom said that more resources still needed to be committed to reaching citizens in remote parts of the country in spite of efforts by the Federal Government and other stakeholders.
According to Effiom, there is an influntial and high network Nigerians who can assist in the fight, adding that the well being of a woman was very crucial to the development of any society.
“The funding to adequately address maternal mortality in Nigeria is not there. We need funding support to help make available more family planning methods and reach more individuals in all parts of the country.
“One major challenge in reaching everyone is the enormous population. The total population in some countries is just the size of one state in Nigeria. This means more finance needs to be available for us to achieve good results.
“Sierra Leone has seven million people and they have 12 outreach teams, MSION has just 20 outreach teams for over 180 million people in Nigeria. Kano state alone has about 17 million people with over 44 local governments and we only have two teams to provide these services.
“We all need to come on board in this fight because irrespective of religion or cultural belief, the rights of women cannot be tampered with; their role towards the growth of the society is incomparable.
“A lot of families have lost a female gender either during child birth, abortion or due to their inability to access good medical services.
“Around 15 to 23 per cent of women who have died would not have died if there was adequate family planning methods available in Nigeria; who will like to see this continue, who wants their sister to get pregnant every year or their daughter pregnant at an early age.
“Our vision is very clear; children by choice and not chance and we will continue to remain that way. Women have a right to choice but right now they have to travel long distances to get the services that they need because lack of funding has created a huge barrier for them.”
Effiom said that providing the right sensitisation on the importance of family planning to all sexually active women in all parts of the country was also another challenge.
Effiom said: “Only 24 per cent of women in the country who are of reproductive age use a modern contraceptive method and 24 per cent will like to use one form of this method but are unable to access them.”
He said that in 2017, the organisation provided just about 1,356,000 women in the country with high quality contraceptive services, saying that this was the highest number it has ever reached in Nigeria.
The country director said that this effort prevented thousands of child and maternal deaths, over 10,000 unsafe abortions and unintended pregnancies.
Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a global organisation providing personal contraception and reproductive health services to women and girls across the world.
MSION, an affiliate of MSI, was established in Nigeria in 2009 to increase access to affordable and high-quality modern contraceptives and confidential reproductive health services for both married and single women. (NAN)
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