MDGs: Yar’Adua proposes way forward to 2015

Written by Chioma Obinna, Tuesday January 29.

PRESIDENT Umaru  Yar’adua  has identified the  urgent need to map the way forward in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target by 2015. He spoke at the 39th Annual Scientific Conference of the Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) in Lagos last week,  noting that the country’s health system has undergone tremendous change for the worse in the last two decades.

Blaming the poor health indices on these changes he said “It is not surprising and tragically that our maternal mortality ratio is one of the highest in the world. In fact in the first five years of the millennium, maternal mortality in Nigeria rose by 14 per cent from 704 to 800 per 100,000 live births, further increasing the challenge of meeting the MDG target of  74 per 100,000 live births by 2015.”

The President who further stressed government’s committment towards achieving these targets noted that  one of the key components to achieving the goals was development of human capital.

To ensure that Nigeria meets the target in time, already a comprehensive National Health investment Plan (NHIP) to achieve the development of human capital has been put in place. He explained that NHIP is an approach for the performance of long range planning, identifying and quantifying amongst others.

Also speaking, Minister of Health, Prof. Adenike Grange who identified that child and maternal health are barometers for other areas of development, described the nation’s health system as weak, unresponsive, inequitable and sometimes unsafe.

 Grange said failure in the sector was reflected in the confirmation of a case of yellow fever fatality in Edo State despite being  a vaccine preventable disease. Noting that Immunization remains a major challenge in the country, she  identified ‘reach every ward’ as  biggest strategy to achieve maximum coverage of immunization.

 PAN President, Prof. William Ogala called on the Minister of Health to reinstate the operation of full routine immunization programme with a view to ensuring the implementation of the newly inaugurated Integrated Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Initiative (IMNCH).

Ogala stressed the need for concurrent training of young indigenous technocrats in the proper use and maintenance of these facilities, to avoid the experience of the past years when many of the teaching hospitals were inundated with broken-down, non functioning equipment.

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