Take Advantage of EU, UNICEF Renovated Facility – District Head Charges Kebbi Community Women
By Uangbaoje Alex, Kebbi
District Head of Bagudo community of Bagudo Local Government Area in Kebbi State, Alhaji Bello Muhammed Sambo, Friday, urged women in the district to take advantage of the newly renovated Maternal and Child Healthcare Centre in the community, by making sure they attend their Antae Natal Care (ANC) regularly.
The MCH Bagudo was renovated and hand over to the State Primary Healthcare Development Agency in April 2019 by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), under the EU – Maternal, New-born, Child Health & Nutrition (MNCHN) intervention currently being implemented in four LGAs in the state.
The intervention project, is aimed at strengthening primary healthcare and community resilience for improved MNCHN outcome in Kebbi State. To improve the nutrition and health status of women and children through a sustainable primary health care delivery
system and improved community resilience.
It’s also met to increase the proportion of poor, marginalized, rural women and under-five years’ old children with increased access to, and effective utilization of, high impact health and nutrition interventions. Improve the functionality of health service provision for health facility, outreach and community based services in 225 wards in Kebbi State by 2020. And also strengthen coordination, policy and institutional framework to scale up, sustain and replicate MNCHN interventions.
Addressing women at the centre when a team from EU and UNICEF led by UNICEF Communication Specialist Rabiu Musa, paid an assessment visit to the facility, the traditional leaders who was represented by Alhaji Umaru Dikko Bagudo, Wakilin Bahidin Bagudo, appealed to the women to always ensure they turn up for ANC and also try as much as possible to encourage other women to go for ANC.
He appreciated EU and UNICEF for their effort in improving healthcare delivery system in the state and also help in reducing child and maternal deaths especially in the rural areas.
Speaking with journalists, Ward Development Committee (WDC) Chairman in the community, Shehu Usman, recalled that, “before the intervention this facility was in a deplorable condition, it was so bad that no pregnant woman was ready to come to this place. But thank God EU and UNICEF came to our rescue.”
Shehu, commended UNICEF and the EU for their intervention in the community. He called on the state government and other development partners to help in providing some other needs of the facility; such as electricity, saying “power is not stable here and we don’t have a generator that can power this facility.”
On her part, Hauwa Shehu, the In-charge of the facility, said since April when the facility was handed over to them officially tremendous change have been recorded in the number of women that now visit the centre.
“Women from 20 settlements, are expected to be accessing this centre and we are very happy with this project because since this intervention started in this community we have never seen any anemic pregnancy because of the ANC care the women now receive at the facility.
“My hope is that every pregnant mother will deliver in the facility without any infant and maternal mortality recorded. Am also hoping that very soon we would have zero percent of mother to child transmission of HIV, and to see all children be fully immunized.
“Every child would be registered at birth and they would all be breastfeed up to at least first six months exclusively. I am grateful to EU, UNICEF, because i have been well trained by them, to care for my community, today the burden is light on me because the environment has become very nice.” She said.
Enumerating what the intervention have provided for the facility, UNICEF Child Survival and Development Consultant in Kebbi State, Susan Adeyemi-Wise, explained that the facility was fully renovated from the scratch to finish.
According to her, apart from renovating the building, the intervention also provided the facility with modern equipments for delivery and laboratory, and provision of essential drugs, various test Kits and Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities.
“We equally supported them with capacity building trainings in different areas such as; life saving skills, Integrated Management of Child Illnesses, Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and Micro Nutrition Powder (MNP).” Susan added.
