Nigeria has joined a network committed to halving preventable deaths of pregnant women and newborns in their health facilities within the next 5 years due to the high incidence of maternal and child mortality.
The network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, is supported by World Health Organization (WHO), United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) and other partners, the countries will work to improve the quality of care mothers and babies receive in their health facilities.
This Network aims to strengthen national efforts to end preventable deaths by 2030, as envisioned by the Every Woman Every Child Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health.
Countries in the network including Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda aims to achieve this by strengthening capacity and motivation of health professional to plan and manage quality improvement, improving data collection and increasing access to medicines, supplies, equipment and clean water.
To achieve this, governments will build and strengthen their national institutions, identify quality of care focal points at all levels of the health system, accelerate and sustain the implementation of quality-of-care improvement packages for mothers, newborns and children, and work with all groups involved to facilitate learning, knowledge sharing and accountability
Anthony Costello, director, WHO Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health noted that “Every mother and infant deserves to receive the highest quality of care when they access health facilities in their communities,”
Through a global learning platform, the Quality of Care Network will build a community of health practitioners from the facility level and develop evidence-based, yet context-specific, strategies to improve quality of care, harvest implementation ideas, and collect information and experiences about what is working.
Globally, every year 303 000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth, just as 2.7 million babies die during the first 28 days of life and 2.6 million babies are stillborn.
According to global agency, the period around childbirth is the most critical for saving mothers and newborns, and preventing stillbirths, these deaths could be prevented with quality care during pregnancy and childbirth.
“Births in health facilities have increased in the past decade. Attention is now shifting from access to care to improve the quality of care so that countries can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals targets to end preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths by 2030,”Noted Costello.
