First lady urges development partners to support FG on maternal healthcare

Mrs Aisha Buhari, the Wife of the President, on Tuesday called for collaboration with developing partners to reduce the rate of maternal and child mortality in the country.

Mrs Buhari made the appeal at an event organised by her office with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Society for Family Health (SFH) and the World Bank Group in Abuja.

The event was organised on the sidelines of the 70th United Nations General Assembly, which held from Sept. 15 to Oct. 6 in New York.

The theme of the event was "A long-term strategy to improve the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) and Nutrition status in Nigeria”.

The event was organised to engage the international development community in order to increase support for health related sectors in Nigeria.

Mrs Buhari, who was represented by the Wife of the Vice President, Mrs Dolapo Osibajo, noted that every year in Nigeria, 33,000 women could be saved from pregnancy related deaths.

Mrs Buhari said these lives were lost due to preventable causes, adding that the Federal Government was committed to ensuring that the statistics reduced significantly.

"So today I raise my voice with yours as an advocate for RMNCAH and Nutrition. In the last decade, the trend in Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) outcomes in Nigeria has remained varied.

"On one hand, data from the last three Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS's) show a 36 per cent decline in the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and a 31 per cent decline in the infant mortality rate.

"In the same vein, the country has recorded some success in reducing its maternal mortality ratio from 800 (NDHS, 2003) to 576 per 100,000 live births (NDHS, 2013).

"On the other hand, about 100 women die daily and many more are incapacitated due to child birth complications," she said.