By Iliya Kure
Local Government (LGA) Chairmen in Kaduna state Thursday commit to engaging residents of their areas on safe motherhood and the need to space their births – this they will do through town hall meetings to enlighten community members on importance of antenatal clinics and hospital delivery.
They made the commitment in Zaria, at the training on child birth spacing, organised by Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI).
Community dialogue according to them, remains the best way to ensure stability of the family and safeguard the lives of women and children. This is in addition to proactive steps they will take towards improving services at the facilities.
Speaking, Chairman of Giwa LGA, Yahaya Saleh Ibrahim, says, investing in the health of women has multiple rewards, hence the need for them to take positive actions that would reduce the death burdens of pregnant women in communities.
“We also need to carry along the traditional and religious leaders so as to ensure its acceptability in the communities.”
“I am surprise that some of these issues have not received the desired attention. We will make necessary budgetary provision to address these issue.” He told the meeting.
Also speaking, Chairman of Zaria LGA, Hassan Abdullahi Makarfi, said, LGAs have a role in safeguarding the lives of residents, especially women.
He called for a strong collaboration between the LGAs and Kaduna State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (SPHCDA) to ensure effective delivery of health services to women.
He stressed the need for improvement in the skills of workers so they could save the lives of more women.”
In a paper, Chairman of Family Health Advocates in Nigeria Initiatives (FHANI), Shehu Makarfi tasked the chairmen to make funds available for the uptake of child spacing services in the state, guaranteeing that it is the best formula to addressing maternal mortality, especially in the face of current financial challenge facing Nigeria.
“This year Kaduna State government has created a budget line for Child spacing and 100M is voted for it under the Drug Management Agency.
“The LGAs have long created budget line for FP in all the 23 LGAs. Initially each LGA had a provision of N500,000 but later it was increased to N2,000,000.
According to him, the state and the local government can work together to ensure adequate provision of funds to provide the service free of charge to all women in the state.
Makarfi said, “the state government has developed a state implementation plan to domesticate national FP policies and scale up FP services in the State.”
Senior Programme Officer in NURHI, Kadijah Ibrahim Nuhu, said, the meeting was to train the LGA Chairmen and Directors PHC on the need to make adequate funds available for child spacing — a quick way of reducing maternal death.
NURHI is working with CSOs, as well as traditional and religious leaders in 15 LGAs of Kaduna State, towards ensuring women have access to free child spacing services. NURHI stated work in Kaduna in 2009.
