By Stephen Adeleye.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), said it has donated medical equipment to 169 health facilities and empowered 4,072 health workers over the past four years in Kogi.
Dr Adetiloye Oniyire, the Country Director of MCSP, disclosed this in Lokoja on Thursday at the stakeholders’ meeting to mark the end of the four-year health intervention project in Kogi.
He said that the MCSP had, since 2014, empowered over 4,000 health workers across 169 health facilities in Kogi with requisite skills to provide quality life saving maternal, newborn and child care services in the state.
According to Oniyire, MCSP is a multi-partner, flagship programme in support of USAID’s priority goal of ending preventable child and maternal deaths in a generation.
He said that the intervention program was implemented in Kogi and Ebonyi, adding that many Kogi healthcare workers had been trained on how to provide quality healthcare services.
“Kogi health facilities were upgraded and many life saving machines provided, health workers and professional associations trained to improve the quality of services.
“The state Ministry of Health was helped to develop quality strategies and policy documents.
“We have been able to build sustainability into this programme and we expect the State Government to carry on from where we have stopped and ensure they leverage on them,” Oniyire said.
on his part, Dr Alobo Gabriel, the Team Lead of MCSP in Kogi, said that the programme has made a lasting impact in the lives of the people of the state, which would forever remained with them.
Alobo said that the MCSP had also donated equipment worth several millions of naira to 169 health facilities in Kogi, including health institutions. It has also improved their laboratories by procuring tools needed by students.
“We have supplied rugged and tested equipment that is going to be useful for over the next 10 years and we are very happy that the governor is buying into our program.
“Those facilities should be able to support and take care of 40 per cent of all the deliveries in the state, including all the Antenatal Care centres.
“From here, we await the National Demographic and Health Survey to see the result of our intervention from compared studies of maternal mortality rate before, and now after four years,” Alobo said.
In his remarks, Dr Saka Audu, Kogi Commissioner for Health, affirmed that MCSP has contributed significantly to the training and retraining of healthcare workers in the state.
The commissioner commended USAID and the MCSP for the health interventions and support that the state has been enjoying for the past four years.
He said the program had impacted greatly on the quality of maternal, newborn and child health care in Kogi, giving assurance that the Kogi government would ensure the sustainability of the programme.
(NAN)
