MPCDSR is to curb maternal, child deaths — Health Minister

THE Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire has said the Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPCDSR) championed by Rotary Action Group for Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health (RMCH) is to generate data on maternal and child health to influence appropriate interventions by policymakers, especially in community.

Dr Ehanire spoke at the opening of a 2-day training for 30 MPCDSR executives from South-West Nigerian state Kwara state on NOQA, e-platform for obstetric quality assurance (OQA) and MPCDSR data management.

According to him, the e-platform on maternal and child health is in operation across the 36 states of the country and the training was to further ensure that MPCDSR executives can enter and interpret its data in a bid to identify problems and influence policy decisions to curb deaths of mothers and children.

Ehanire speaking through Dr Samuel Oyeniyi, the national MPCDSR desk officer, declared that from the platform it is possible to know what is happening in every community and health facility, including the number of births, use of contraceptives, available equipment and different health conditions encountered by women.

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He added that analysis of data on the platform indicated that the covid-19 pandemic disrupted access to essential services and was able to pick up where more deaths were recorded during the period in the community.

The Minister, therefore, urged the MPCDSR executives to ensure proper capturing of data as well as continuous support of Rotary International in the promotion of maternal and child health in the country.

RMCH’s representative, Mr Adedotun Amori said that maternal deaths in Nigeria are high and RMCH’s intervention was to support the government to put an end to these needless deaths.

He added, “with this intervention now, deaths from the facilities can be captured, the causes identified and the necessary action taken by policymakers to forestall them from happening again. We also strengthen the capacity of the health workers to identify these areas of weaknesses that needs to be strengthened to curb these deaths.”

Dr Sunday Omoya, consultant obstetrics and gynaecologist at the State Specialist Hospital, Ikare, good data are the most important to reducing Nigeria’s staggering poor health statistics in health and when what is happening is known, appropriate questions can be asked and actions taken.