By Muhammad Auwal
The Federal Government through the Save-One-Million-Live (SOML) initiative has trained no fewer than 400 healthcare providers in Kwara State on improving maternal and neo-natal cares to reduce mortality.
State’s SOML Programme Manager, Dr Umar Hassan made the disclosure while speaking with newsmen on the sidelines of the ongoing training in Omu-Aran, Irepodun Local Government Area of the state.
He said the state was witnessing great improvement in the area of managing maternal and infants health, since inception of the training for health workers across the 16 LGAs.
According to him, training is in the area of integrated maternal and child health illnesses at the Primary Health Care level.
Hassan added that the health care workers needed to have precise understanding of what they needed to do while responding to common ailments that concern the target population.
He explained that those who passed through the training had been equipped with the best practices in management of fever in children, Asphyxia, malaria, concluding and Pneumonia, among other ailments.
The expert observed that the ability of healthcare providers to identify danger signs was what could reduce maternal, child mortality in Nigeria.
The SOML Programme Manager said that poor perception of health workers by the patients was also a critical issue for which the training is addressing.
According to him, there is a course and module in the training that addresses issues of attitude of healthcare providers to patients.
“Perception of the client is very important and it is important that the clients have a very good perception of you, and that happens if only you have very good attitude towards the clients,” he said.
Also speaking with newsmen, Dr Uthman Mubashir, Head of Africa Executive Training and Career Development Limited, explained that the training was as a result of a response analysis that Kwara was not doing well in maternal and child care.
“Indications show need for improvement on knowledge and skills of healthcare providers, basic intervention and prevention of maternal mortality,” he said.
Mubashir said the training would help to reduce maternal mortality, empower health workers with knowledge of modern facilities, and elicit best interaction with patients.
Mrs Asmau Apkalando, one of the trainees, commended the government for the initiative, adding that they would in turn train other care providers when they get back to their respective places.
She appealed to the state government to equip the health centres and hospitals with modern facilities, so they could effectively apply the knowledge they had acquired in managing patients.
Newsmen reports that healthcare workers undegroing the training include NYSC medical doctors, mid-wives, nurses and community extension workers among others.
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