FG Moves to Improve Capacity of Gynaecological Health Workers

•Expand training to six states

OnyebuchiEzigbo in Abuja

The federal government said it is collaborating with development partners to implement a health workforce training initiative aimed at scaling up the quality of gynaecological care across Nigeria.

It said the Gynaecological Health programme which began as a pilot initiative in two states – Kano and Abuja – is now being expanded to cover six states, one in each of the six geographic zones of the country.

Addressing participants at the commencement of the One Day Essential Gynecological Skills (EGS) Dissemination Workshop in Abuja, the Head of Safe Motherhood, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dr. SaiduAbdulhadi, said the event was meant to disseminate information on the document titled ‘Essential Gynecological Skills”, which was developed by the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with other stakeholders.

Among the stakeholders involved in the implementation of the training initiative funded by the UK government are the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London, the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON), ACEPHAP and the Government of United Kingdom.

SaiduAbdulhadi said the federal government is seeking to take the health workforce training programme down to the local levels so there will be maximum impact.

“This is part of efforts to strengthen skills of our health workers, especially at the secondary and primary health care level, so that they can provide

skill sets.

“We focus on usually obstetrics, but this is the first time we’re developing a document targeting gynecological skills, to be precise,” he said.

Under the programme, various expert trainers were made to acquire to more gynaecological skills from each of the three pilot states.

Speaking on the objectives and progress made at the implementation of the initiative, a Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and Director of African Center of Excellence for Population Health and Policy – a research centre at Bayero University in Kano, Prof. HadizaGaldanci, said the programme is targeted at training multidisciplinary frontline healthcare providers including; nurses, midwives and community health workers.

She said gynecological cases were usually neglected, adding that cases such as vaginal fistula are often not attended to.

“We have about 2 million people across mainly Asia and Africa. Majority of them are in African countries like Nigeria, as well as cervical cancer. 90 percent of cervical cancer cases are in low middle-income countries like Nigeria. And 90 percent of them come at a very late stage that we can’t do anything about it.

“So, because of these conditions, we decided that a lot of skills we have in identifying these gynecological cases and treating them and therefore we decided to train healthcare workers across Nigeria.”

According to her, the training programme was first rolled out in Kano and Abuja as a pilot scheme and later Enugu State.

Galdanci said that due to the success rate recorded by the training programme whose manual has been endorsed by the federal government for similar capacity building training nationwide.

“So far a total of 180 persons made up of doctors, nurses, midwives, community health workers and other categories of health professionals were trained in Kano and Abuja,” she said.

President of SOGON, Prof. OkechukwiIkpeze said apart from the gynecologists, nurses, midwives and even community health officers are being exposed to high quality gynaecological skill training through the initiative in order to improve healthcare service delivery and encourage more women to come forward for treatment.

Ikpeze said that there are currently about 2,000 practicing gynaecologists spread across Nigeria.