Regina Otokpa ABUJA 
The President, Association of Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) Prof. Oladapo Ladipo, has described the high rate of maternal deaths in the country as shameful, as he insisted Nigeria does not lack the needed qualities to make the health sector work.
Ladipo joined other experts to demand free maternal and family planning services especially at rural areas, at a one day summit organised by the Association of Health Journalists (ANHEJ) with support from Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health at Scale (PACFaH@scale), and the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) in Abuja.
While urging the media not to relent in setting agenda for the incoming administration on the need to take the health sector more seriously, he expressed disappointment that past government’s had failed to prioritise the sector whose issues were in need of utmost attention to avert preventable deaths and health induced sufferings.
He said: “Health is a basic human right, when health is absent wisdom cannot manifest itself, making health a priority as number one or two on the government agenda will go a long way to reduce the challenges in the sector.
“Provision of enough funds for the sector is paramount here, women are about 50 per cent of the country’s population and no woman should die in the process of giving birth to another life.
“Women are about 50 per cent of the country’s population and no woman should die in the process of giving birth to another life. Maternal death in Nigeria is very shameful, we do not lack the qualities to make things work.”
Chairman, Management Committee, Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), Dr. Ejike Orji, who noted that poor funding could lead to maternal death of which Nigeria has the highest rate globally, said there was need for a policy thrust to reverse the horrible trend.
Orji urged government to recruit and send more midwives to rural health facilities, increase advocacy on family planning programmes, pay a good monthly remuneration for midwives to get their commitment to work, and ensure the family planning 2030 commitment of one per cent of the health budget was made a priority at all government levels.
Director of Programmes PACFaH@scale, Stanley Ukpai who noted that the family planning blueprint would expire in 2024 yet the 27 per cent prevalence rate has not been achieved, urged the new administration to consider ways of managing the population to see how they could contribute to the productivity of the country.
“There is a policy and a system in place being implemented by the office of the vice president in the human capital development process. Whenwe talk about population management, it is all encompassing so that the population that we already have will begin to contribute to economic processes and productivity and take Nigeria through this recovery process.”
