The Kaduna State Government says it wants stronger collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to improve newborn care and the entire healthcare delivery system in the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Amina Mohammed-Baloni, said this during a visit by UNICEF officials to her office in Kaduna on Thursday.

Mohammed-Baloni said the state government requires more collaboration with UNICEF and other partners to strengthen the capacity of frontline health workers.

She stated that postnatal visit was weak in the state, and stressed the need to improve such visit, improve the availability of oxygen and strengthen neonatal corners in health facilities.

She added that the state equally needs support for effective implementation of the Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) programme to change peoples’ behaviours and improve demand for health services.

The commissioner said: “Newborn and child indices in Nigeria have not been improving significantly in spite of huge investments.

“We’ve tried to focus on data to see where we have issues and areas we can intervene and where we can get support from our partners.”

Mohammed-Baloni added that the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2018 (NDHS 2018) put neonatal mortality rate in Kaduna State at 63 per 1000 live births.

She said the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2021 (MICS 2021) shows a remarkable improvement from 63 to 47 per 1000 live births.

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The commissioner, however, explained that the state government improved the capacity of frontline health workers on neonatal care with a view to addressing avoidable death.

She added that with support from UNICEF, the state government developed a State Newborn Action Plan, while efforts were ongoing to ensure full implementation.

“We have introduced neonatal corners in Primary Health Care Centres where children or babies that are at risk can get quality service.

“But you know it is very important to have skilled birth attendants and this is where we have a little bit of challenge.

“Children that are born at home if they have complications have less chances of surviving, so we are trying to improve on our skilled birth attendant’s performance,” Mohammed-Baloni said.

Mohammed-Baloni said the government has improved oxygen availability in health facilities, adding that the neonatal mortality rate would improve, if more people were encouraged to deliver their babies in hospitals.

On the Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) programme, the commissioner said the initiative was designed to strengthen integration of community approach to demand creation for health services.

“We give a package of care or services for household practices to mobilise parents and caregivers to access these services,” she said.

She stated that Kaduna State is doing excellently well on HIV response, adding that the state is currently at about 90 per cent coverage of Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.

“For PMTCT services, the challenge is tied to the delivery. If your pregnancy is not supervised and your delivery is not supervised, that window of getting diagnosis and treatment becomes a challenge.

“So, I think if we improve on our deliveries in the facilities and under-skilled birth care, we will be able to link them better to PMTCT services,” Mohammed-Baloni stated.

On his part, the Health Specialist, UNICEF Kaduna, Dr Idris Baba, who led the delegation, said the visit to Kaduna was to document the impact of maternal, newborn and child health programmes in the state.

Also speaking, the Health Specialist, UNICEF Abuja, Dr Obinna Orjingene, commended the state government for the commitment toward improving maternal and newborn health, adding that the progress recorded so far were quite impressive and pledged UNICEF’s continued support.

The Star