Segun James
Following the rising cases of maternal mortality in the country, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Maternal Reproductive Health Research Collective (MRHRC) is to support and fund 5,000 vulnerable pregnant women who couldn’t afford healthcare service on safe delivery.
The founder of MRHRC, Prof. Bosede Afolabi gave the remark after a 5 kilometre marathon run held for the 5,000 pregnant women at the Muri Okunola Park in Lagos Island.
Afolabi said: “This project is to reduce the number of Nigerian pregnant women dying from pregnancy and childbirth because they couldn’t access healthcare services to have safe delivery.”
The founder who is a professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, lamented that much efforts had not been made towards improving the maternal mortality in the country, urging stakeholders to increase awareness on how to further minimise the cases.
She argued that one of the actual causes of high rate maternal mortality is that women were not delivering in healthcare facilities.
She said: “In 2020, 82,000 pregnant Nigerian women died of pregnancy and childbirth. It is about three times more than India and India is about five times our population. So if India could reduce theirs, it is important for us to reduce ours.
“ We are also letting the pregnant women know that they should go to hospital to deliver; they shouldn’t stay at home or somewhere where they are not skilled because a lot of women will die from visiting people that are not skilled.”
The don explained that the awareness campaign was a testament of her foundation’s commitment to reducing the growing numbers of death recorded yearly from maternal mortality.
“Once they know they can’t afford healthcare facility, they should reach out to us, once we know it is pregnancy, we are registering them in the community and the plan for this is 5,000 women that can’t afford the healthcare service.
“We have registered 300 already. If they want to register, they can go to our website : www.mrhrcollective.org,” she urged.
Also speaking the Chief Executive Officer, Sterling One Foundation, Olapeju Ibekwe, stressed the need for the society to prioritise the pregnant women.
She said: “Saving women’s lives is saving the society because as long as we keep them alive, the society is alive.
“Today, we are having 5km run for 5,000 pregnant women. Statistics reveal that between 2005 and 2015, we lost 600,000 women in Nigeria due to childbirth. It is very scary statistics and today we still have over 80,000 pregnant women dying in Nigeria.”
She called on the wealthy individuals to support the pregnant women by providing financial assistance to allow them access healthcare services.
