Bayelsa Might Have The Worst Maternal Mortality In South-South

Professor Ebitimitula Etebu, the Commissioner for Health, disclosed on Monday in Yenagoa while declaring open the commencement of the week-long first round 2017 Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week (MNCHW) in the Bayelsa, that the state currently has the poorest record of maternal mortality rate among the states of the south-south region in particular and the country in general.

Etebu, who put the maternal mortality figure at 1,870/100,000, attributed “this sad state of affairs” to low coverage of key high-impact interventions in virtually all previous rounds, and poor access to communities, especially due to a plethora of hard-to-reach areas occasioned by the extensive riverine terrain.

He listed other factors to include poor social mobilization of the peoples and communities, training/knowledge gaps amongst health care workers and health care staff attrition.

“The state has carried out 14 rounds of the MNCH since when the week was first birthed, and in all that time, the state has not performed well in all measurable indices due, in most part, to the reasons highlighted earlier,” Etebu said.

He said the MNCHW is a product of the 53rd National Council on Health Meeting aimed at delivering integrated, high-impact and low-cost preventive and curative health services to children and pregnant women.

He noted that the programme, which is implemented in two rounds, six months apart in any given year, also serves to strengthen routine services delivered at the health facilities and that it is a simple, one-time delivery mechanism which consolidates facility-based outreach services at the state, local government area, and ward levels.