Ondo State governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, has anchored the success of its government’s globally acclaimed Safe Motherhood initiative, Abiye, on the implementation of  three key principles adopted  as the main strategy for the running of  the programme.

Mimiko made the revelation while speaking at the Nigerian side event of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the Abiye Safe Motherhood success story.

Mimiko said the Abiye success story is hinged on three basic principles: “Tracking of the pregnant women from conception to delivery; opening the health care sector for universal and free access; and allocation of resources in the most efficient and equitable manner.” He added that the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Death, an initiative to track death of pregnant women, has provided a verifiable proof that maternal mortality figures are falling in the State.

Speaking on the specifics of his now globally-acknowledged ‘Abiye’ initiative at the UN General Assembly side event, Mimiko said his government had to embark on a government-financed health care initiative when faced with mind-boggling figures of mortality in the State. “We vowed that pregnancy will no longer be a death sentence in our State and we embarked on a comprehensive process of intervention that has yielded noticeable results in a short period of time. From a novel process of tracking pregnant women through ICT tools, to providing care and access at all stages of pregnancy to delivery and five weeks after, we have provided care at no cost to the woman or her family at the point of care. Several lives have been saved in the process.”