Mc Arthur Foundation Partners NGSG To Train PHC Medics

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By; BALA B. BITRUS, Minna.
Global healthcare donor, the Mc Arthur Foundation is to assist Niger state government to train middle cadre medics such as Nurses, Midwives and other Auxiliary medics to address fatalities during child births in rural areas.
The Foundation is partnering the state government to domesticate a policy that would encourage medics to work in rural areas by producing standard operating procedures that would help in guiding the implementation of the health policy for the benefits the citizens especially those in the rural areas.  
 
The project which is in collaboration with the Niger state Ministry of Health and the Primary Health Care, (PHC), the Essential Obstetric and Newborn Care Centres is to increase the pool of skilled birth attendants so as to check and reduce cases of maternal and infants moralities especially during child births across the state.
 
Senior Manager (Technical Service), Pathfinder International Nigeria, Olayiwola Jaiyeola disclosed this in an interview in Minna shortly after a two day training workshop for health care workers along with some civil society organizations in the state.
 
The Mc Arthur Foundation sponsored programme is a three years project which is aimed at addressing the dearth in such medical personnel for rural areas.
The new partnership is to meet the urgent healthcare needs of rural dwellers where many health workers dread to go to. 
“Majority of the over 170 million Nigerians dwell in downtown, rural areas where access to quality healthcare services are poor and non existent in most places”.
 
Under the new partnership, the Foundation is to train the medics so as to have enough pool of such petsonel for use in healthcare delivery services.
Mr. Jaiyeola told our correspondent that the essence of the training programme was to create enough pool of capable, trained hands to plug the shortfall in such health care professionals to meet the immediate healthcare challenges in rural areas in line with the recommendation of the World Health Organisation, (WHO).
The Senior Manager of the Mc Author Foundation said the agency is supporting Niger state government to operationalise the National Task-shifting policy for health care workers, a document developed by the Federal Ministry of Health and approved by the National Council on Health.
 
“McArthur Foundation is supporting Niger state government to bridge the shortfall in health care professionals and caregivers.
He said the intervention was informed by the continued mobidities during child births of mothers and infants. He said health indices over time were not improving especially as maternal and neonatal mortality continue to increase due to dearth of skilled healthcare workers and births attendants mostly in rural areas”.
 
He explained that the project is to engage health workers resident in rural areas to bridge the gap and shortfall in the availability of Doctors, Nurses, Midwives and other health workers who do not often want to go to rural areas where access to quality health care delivery is poor.
 
Director, Public Health and Chairman, Niger state Task Team for the Operationalization of Task Shifting/Sharing, Dr. Mohammed Usman commended the Mc Arthur Foundation for assisting the state by ensuring quality healthcare delivery.

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