SAT, JANUARY 7 2017- The federal government is considering a N20 billion conditional cash Transfer to pregnant mothers in the country in a bid to attract more women to ante-natal care and forestall avoidable deaths prevalent today in most Nigerian maternity homes.
The conditional cash Transfer is one of the strategies the present administration would be adopting to dissuade pregnant mothers from patronizing traditional birth attendants.
While giving an insight into government’s plan on the conditional cash transfer, Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Health said,” Am also talking to the Senior Special Assistant to Mr .President on Sustainable Development Goal. We are working on a package, and we might start with a few states for now. We want to begin with conditional cash transfer for pregnant women, while looking at how we could attract them to ante-natal services to forestall incidences of maternal and child health”
Adewole said,” We have done a World Bank survey and it is N5000 from pregnancy to the delivery period. We think it is big for the entire country. We say, even if it is N250x4 antennal periods .Each time they come for post-vaccine, we also give them.
Meanwhile, the Minister noted that birth-count in Nigeria is currently put at 7 million, while maintaining that the initiative is going to cost the government around N20billion. Am currently discussing with the SSA to the president on the SDG so that we could access it from the federal government’s social safety net programme.
“We need to draw women away from traditional birth attendants, while ensuring that they did not die because they want to give birth,”Adewole explained.
While explaining government’s current position on the Nigerian Midwives service scheme, MSS, Adewole said, ”The MSS is there and we are funding it. We put money there in 2016 budget and we are putting money again in 2017. We are working hard to clear the arrears that we owed them in the past. When we came in, we brought the MSS-retired midwives to fill the gap. We are still going to use them. I have given approval to Sokoto, and Kebbi to do community mid-wives so that we could train more people to take over the job.
Nigeria posts one of the worst health indices in respect to maternal and child health which stakeholders in the health sector have continued to express worry.
For instance, findings from UNICEF report shows that every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300- under five year old and 145 women of childbearing age. The makes the country the second largest contributor to the under-five and maternal mortality rate in the world.
Underneath the statistics lies the pain of human tragedy for thousands of families who have lost their children. Even more devastating is the knowledge that according to recent research, essential interventions reaching women and babies on time would have averted most of the tragedies.
