By Fatima Saka
The wife of the former Governor of Kwara State, and Senate President of Nigeria Mrs. Toyin Ojora-Saraki has mitigated the impacts of maternal mortality with over 23 per cent reduction through Wellbeing Foundation Africa.
Mrs. Saraki who is the Founder and President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, an Non-governmental organization, said that this was achieved through implementation of Statewide Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care Skills Programs, adding that it is a very specialized training that uses simulation models to improve the availability and quality of care in Nigeria.
The former first lady made this known to the press during an interactive session with the newsmen at launching of Global Health Workforce Programme on Thursday in Abuja,
She further expressed that the program was offered at a field level in hospitals, and also to postgraduate medical graduates, medicine graduates and nursing graduates, adding that the foundation had done this in 51 hospitals in Nigeria, and had reached over 736 Master trainers.
Giving an evaluation of the program, the former first lady of Kwara state stated that for the first six months of doing that program at that time, which ended in 2020, that there was an immediate reduction in maternal deaths in the media production of over 23% postpartum birth injuries and corresponding increase in survival.
” It is very expensive, very labor intensive training that we have long wanted to be able to metric medical curricula and be able to take this sort of training to scale. So in fact, we have now applied to be able to put in these training labs in the national postgraduate medical college of Nigeria which is a government institution to be able to offer this very needed course as postgraduate training, continuous professional development to everybody who wishes to be certificated related to Nigeria.”
She further commended the UK Government and the UK Department of Health and Social Care and Education for the partnerships of launching Global Health Workforce Programme (GHWP) in Nigeria.
“Today came through a competitive process, where organizations working in Nigeria, who had links to the United Kingdom could apply for the specific programs which demonstrated impact on the ground here in Nigeria, and also demonstrated the knowledge sharing and knowledge learning.
“So it was an opportunity for those of us who have been working at the front line, who have seen challenges at the front line, but also have clear solutions to apply for grants to be able to take our work to scale.”
