Fred Itua, Abuja
The Federal Government, yesterday, revealed that the country’s maternal mortality rate currently stood at 512 deaths per 100,0000 live births, while neonatal mortality rate stood at 39 per 1,000 live births and under age mortality rate 132 per 1000 live births.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, made the revelations while addressing newsmen after defending the 2021 budget of her office.
She, however, said serious interventions had been made to reduce the numbers.
She said the SGDs office has already responded to the challenges with the construction of Mother and Child Centres and strategic partnerships across the country with the aim of promoting the health of the mothers and children, reducing maternal and child mortality and improving Nigeria’s health indices.
“Another significant step towards tackling problems associated with infants, neo-natal and maternal care was taken recently with the commissioning of a fully equipped state of the art 100-bed Mother and Child Care (MCC) hospital in Ifon Community, Ose Local Government Area of Lagos State.
“The facilities are equipped to stop maternal, child deaths. The facilities are strategic interventions directly linked to the achievement of SDG-3 on ‘Quality Health and Well-being for all’ and other cross-cutting SDGs.
“Specifically, this Mother and Child Centres aim to address the high prevalence of maternal and child mortalities in Nigeria in line with the mandate of OSSAP-SDGs to implement or support policies and programmes aimed at fast-tracking the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.
“An example of this is the 100-Bed Mother and Child Centre we are commissioning today – built and donated to the Ondo State Government by the OSSAP-SDGs. It is therefore imperative that the state government owns these strategic interventions and ensure their sustainability for the benefit of our people. As we continue to work together to achieve the transformative promise to ‘Leave no one behind’, I would like to call on corporate organisations, philanthropists and foundations to continue to partner the government for this type of initiatives as part of their Corporate Social Responsibilities. We will continue to prioritise programmes and interventions with potential large-scale impact for achieving the SDGs in Nigeria,” she said.