By  Victoria Ojeme

National Primary Health care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at the weekend signed a Memorandum of Understanding  (MOU) on Midwifery Service Scheme (MSS) aimed at improving maternal survival in the country.

The Managing Director of NPHCDA, Alhaji Mohammed Pate made this known at the signing ceremony, saying, Nigeria is beginning to make progress in terms of improving maternal survival noting that it has reduced the estimated 1100 deaths of women for every 100,000 life birth in 2005 to 545 out of 100,000 in 2008.

He said that although that was not good enough, the federal government is determined to continue with positive movement and improve the survival of women and children in order to safeguard the human capital of Nigeria for a long time.

According to him to achieve this, “we requires partnership between Federal Government, States, Local Government, Development Partners like UNFPA, WHO, Civil Society Organisations, Faith Based Organisations, Media and every stakeholder.

“All hands must be on deck to ensure maternal survival is maximized in our country we are committed to doing that”, he said.

 “The partnership is specifically a joint effort between UNFPA, Federal Ministry of Health as well as NPHCDA to compliment each other support to harmonise the respective efforts so that there will be optimise use of resources available”.

“The partnership will focus on the provision of Magnesium Sulphate which will be use to treat one of the killer of women when they come for delivery, to provide anti-sore garment so that haemorrhage will be dealt with  when the woman is bleeding after delivery”.

“It will also focus on the area of capacity building for midwives and the provision of mama kits. Already NPHCDA  has in the last one year provided 672 mama kits for women”.