By Bashir Bello 

Worried by the alarming rate of maternal and neonatal mortality in the country, a multinational beverage company, Coca-Cola Nigeria, has donated medical equipment worth $720,000 to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, AKTH to reduce preventable mortalities.

The equipment such as anaesthesia machine, baby incubator, ultrasound machine, auto-clev, delivery bed among others were donated under “The Safe Birth Initiative, SBI” in partnership with Medicare International (USA), Federal Ministry of Health and Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals.

The company’s Managing Director in Nigeria, Alfred Olajide said the initiative was to strengthen the capacity of selected tertiary institutions to change the narrative of maternal and neonatal mortalities that have been a concern to Nigerians.

Olajide said: “In developing this programme, we intend to provide the support that will strengthen the capacity of our tertiary health institutions. First, to procure the vital modern maternal and neonatal health equipment and supplies that would save the lives of mothers and their children.

“We prioritized the training and upscaling of biomedical engineering technicians to improve the equipment maintenance at all times crucial to the efficiency of the hospital.

“We decided to optimize the hospital assets as well by repairing and reactivating broken-down medical equipment. So these are the three broad areas that we are intervening in.

“We have been able to execute these across six tertiary health institutions. And Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital is the seventh beneficiary hospital to be impacted on this journey.”