Stakeholders in the health sector on Tuesday adopted the domestication of the National Guidelines aimed at tackling maternal and child northerlies in Nasarawa State.
The stakeholders stated this in Lafia during a three-day meeting on adaptation and domestication of the guidelines organised by a Non-Governmental-Organisation (NGO), Catalysing Strengthening Policy Action for Healthy Diets and Resilience (CASCADE).
The stakeholders were drown from the Nasarawa State Ministry of Health, Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH) Lafia, Hospital Management Board, Nasarawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Keffi and development partners.
Speaking at event, Dr Ibrahim Alhassan, Director, Public Health at the Ministry of Health said that the stakeholders had accepted the domestication of the national guidelines.
He added however, that they had reviewed the national guidelines given the peculiarity of the state for smooth implementation.
“This strategies will help us identify deaths of all mothers as a result of pregnancy and deaths of children from zero to five years.
“If we identified the causes of the deaths, we will interrogate the process to ascertain the possible strategies to prevent reoccurrence.
“This intervention is a no blame strategy to identify the causes of the deaths in order to put up mitigating measures to guard against future occurrence,” Alhassan added.
He further explained that the stakeholders would produce a document that would work toward addressing the unacceptable rate of maternal and child northerlies in the state.
“Healthcare workers as well as other stakeholders would be on the lookout for cases, causes and ways to prevent maternal and child northerlies in the state based on the new document,” the Director Public Health added.
Also speaking at the event, Mr Isaac Ishaya-Audu, Programme Manager of
Catalysing Strengthening Policy Action for Healthy Diets and Resilience (CASCADE) said the domestication would help in tackling maternal and child northerlies in the state.
He further said that their organisation is working in the state to complement the government and other partners by ensuring that woman and children have access to balanced diets.
He said they have interest to ensure a gender transformative approach to challenge social norms that impact women’s access to diets practices.
“We also empowers women through nutrition sensitive agricultural practices to help them take advantage of the local food options around them to prepare balanced diets,” he added.
He explained that their organisation was currently working in 18 Local Government Areas across four states of Bauchi, Jigawa, Kebbi and Nasarawa.
The programme manager added that they were working with the government to strengthen the implementation of food and nutrition policies as part of the response mechanism to tackle maternal and child northerlies.
“We are also working with private service providers engaged by the government to supply nutritional foods to pupils of primary schools to ensure standard practice,” Ishaya-Audu added.
On his part, Dr Emmanuel Okpe, Surveillance Officer of World Health Organisation (WHO) in the state lauded the state government and other partners for domesticating the guidelines.
He explained that the state would now be better prepared to gather more reliable data that would help them respond promptly to tackle causes of maternal and child northerlies in the state.
He therefore pledged that WHO would continued to support the state to ensure that the people receive better and affordable healthcare services.