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Maternal Mortality: Expert seeks scaling- up access to medical services in rural reas

By Joke Falaju, Abuja
29 May 2022   |   4:06 am
Medical experts have urged the Federal Government to scale up access to health care services in rural communities, to curb maternal morality rate in the country.

maternal mortality

Medical experts have urged the Federal Government to scale up access to health care services in rural communities, to curb maternal morality rate in the country.

According to them, inadequate personnel and facilities to care for the expecting mothers, earned Nigeria its current ranking as the country with the highest mortality rate in the world.

The Chief Executive Officer of Deda Hospital, Katampe, Abuja, Dr. Sunday Onuh, while speaking at the 10th year anniversary of the hospital, yesterday, said:  “We found out that most of the health facilities are concentrated in the urban areas, but most of the births are happening in the rural areas and at times before getting to the urban centres it’s always too late.”

He said: “Government has a lot to do to encourage the health industry by building capacity in the rural areas. When the government started establishing primary health care centres in the rural areas it was very laudable but unfortunately it faded off.”

Onuh stressed the need for government to subsidise medical care, noting that the health bill recently signed into law, will go a long way in improving access to good medical care.

He mentioned that in their 10 years of operation, his hospital has provided medical services to Nigerians and other patients across the world. “Our aim is to discourage medical tourism….

“We invested in equipment and human capital to ensure we give the best treatment without compromising standard and giving value for what our patients come for and we have recorded a lot of success.  We don’t just do the conventional vitro fertilization (IVF), but we try to excel in what we are doing.

“We went into a treatment that offers the screening of the embryos, this technology has helped to screen people who have genetic diseases. For couples who have genetic disorder we try to screen the embryo and eliminate them.”

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