By Kazeem Akintunde
Nigeria’s maternal and infant mortality rate is still among the highest in the world, with 540 babies out of 100,000 dying before the age of five. The giant of Africa only came second behind India, a report authored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) titled ‘Improving Maternal And Newborn Health And Survival And Reducing Stillbirth: Progress Report 2023’ stated. The report noted that in 2020, 788 women and children died out of 100,000 in India and 540 women and children out of 100,000 died in Nigeria.
In the same year, India accounted for 17 per cent of global maternal, and neonatal deaths and stillbirths, while Nigeria accounts for 12 per cent. Eight other countries with high maternal, neonatal, and still births are Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and the United Republic of Tanzania.
The figures coming from WHO is enough to give a serious nation cause for concern. But in Nigeria, nothing seems to shock us anymore. In actual fact, there is no concrete action plan on how we intend to reduce maternal and infant deaths which occur in most of our rural areas on a daily basis.
Yet, the target set by world leaders is to reduce infant death to 70 deaths out of 100,000 by the year 2030. In other words, The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the ‘Global Goals’, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The target in the health sector is to reduce maternal and infant deaths to a minimal 70 per 100,000 births by 2030. We are only six years away from the set date.
It is certain that Nigeria is not likely to meet the target soon going by the ways we do things in the country. Few years ago, my junior sister almost died while trying to give birth. She would have become one of the sad statistics of Nigerians that have died in the process of having a child. When she became pregnant and was about to give birth, it was agreed that she should use a government facility. The Ifako Ijaiye General Hospital was chosen and that was where she enrolled for her anti-natal. When it was time to deliver, she was in labour for more than 48 hours, yet the medical personnel seemed not to care about her safety and that of the unborn baby.
Not until I intervened by calling the commissioner for health in Lagos State at the time, Dr Jide Idris, to complain about the lackadaisical attitude of the medical personnel before she was attended to. The Commissioner had to call the Chief Medical Director of the hospital before two senior consultants were detailed to attend to her. By then, her condition had become critical. She was immediately rushed to the theater where the baby was delivered through caesarian section. Unfortunately, the baby died the following day as her breathing had been impaired, coupled with infection she picked up during the prolonged labour.
A sad tale from the so-called ‘Centre of Excellence’. If such death could be recorded in Lagos State, one can only imagine what is going on in most of our rural areas, where hundreds of our women alongside their babies die during childbirth daily. And this is because in must rural areas, the fate of these women are left in the hands of traditional birth attendants and where they are lucky, a midwife. Hardly will you find a Medical Doctor in those communities. In essence, we are likely to continue to record more deaths during childbirth. I do not see Nigeria meeting the SDG target in the next 50 years going by the uncaring attitude of all across the board.
The cheering news is this one man who is determined to change the narrative – Professor Hippolyte Amadi. In the last 30 years, Prof. Amadi has done all within his power to change the trajectory in the country’s health sector. Amadi is a professor of Medical Technology at the Imo State University that has been snapped up by Imperial College, London, where he is a visiting Professor. Before he left the shores of the country for the United Kingdom, Prof. Amadi has been racking his brain on how he could come up with a device that would assist new born babies who are born premature and those with respiratory difficulties at birth to survive. He and his team of scientists came up with a Non-invasive Neonatal Ventilator (NIV), an Oxygen Delivery Blender System, and an Oxygen Splitter System, all powered by solar energy. The NIV has been tested and peer reviewed all over the world, and is considered the gold standard in the care of preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS).
In layman’s language, Prof. Amadi simply invented a local form of a ventilator and through that mechanism, has been saving lives of hundreds of new born babies in at least 25 tertiary hospitals and General Hospitals across the country where the invention is being used. Known as ‘Low-cost Respiratory Technology For Keeping the Nigerian Neonates Alive’, the device provides access to ventilators and Oxygen simultaneously delivered to neonates. Another good news is that it cost less than N1m against N6.5 million for one imported ventilator into the country.
In recognition of his outstanding contribution to healthcare delivery in Nigeria and Science, Prof. Amadi won the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG’s Prize for Science in 2023, with a winning prize of $100,000. His entry was described as the most outstanding entry for the year 2023. Former Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, who led the Prize’s Advisory Board, said that Amadi’s work has not only significantly advanced neonatal care in Nigeria and similar countries, “it has further improved access and lowered the cost of neonatal care by causing an observed reduction in the market prices of competing and existing devices”.
Now, his major preoccupation is to ensure that the device gets to the remotest parts of Nigeria so that it would aid new born babies with breathing difficulties to survive. And to do that, the NLNG and the Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), last week, organized an interactive Business Session with captains of industry in the hope that the business community would provide the needed funds for the large-scale deployment of the device to all PHCs across Nigeria.
There are over 10,000 primary healthcare Centre’s in Nigeria, but many of them are a shadow of what they used to be in recent past. During the period Professor Isaac Adewole as Health Minister, he developed a blue print with which he planned to change the healthcare narrative in the country, using the Primary Healthcare Centers as a springboard of the turnaround. READ ALSO:
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He wanted to rehabilitate 10,000 PHCs across the country so that General Hospitals and Teaching Hospitals would be free to attend for Nigerians with critical health challenges. However, he succeeded in rehabilitating over 5,000 with the support of international partners such as the Department for International Development (DFID), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank.
However, since he left office, little or no attention has been paid to the sector. Now, Prof. Amadi wants each of those PHCs to have at least one of those devices so that neonatal mortality can be drastically reduced in the country. In his discussion with the business community in Lagos, he disclosed that he is also willing to put down 30 per cent of the total cost and assured that anyone willing to venture into partnership stands to gain from the venture.
His priority, he told his guests, is simply to save life and not necessarily to make money from the venture. In fact, his winning prize of $100,000 has been ploughed back into research and he is on the verge of completing work on a machine that would be useful in the treatment of new born babies with jaundice. The new device, known as Politeultralumen jaundice device is undergoing clinical trial. It makes use of solar energy to checkmate the lack of electricity in most of our rural areas. Again, part of the winning prize has also been deployed to manufacture PoliteheartCPAP version 5, a more advanced feature than the version 4 that won the NLNG Prize for Science in 2023.
If there is one Nigerian that should be courted by those in power, Prof. Amadi should come up tops for his contributions to health and science. Although President Bola Tinubu commended him for winning the award, the Federal Ministry of Health has not deemed it fit to have a talk with him on how to scale down the device to all PHCs and maternity centres in the country.
It is time for those in the health sector to see how the device would reach all health centres across the country so that the high child and infant mortality rate will be drastically reduced. That is one thing that would give Prof. Amadi and all at risk, joy. Although a citizen of the United Kingdom now, he has never forgotten his roots and is doing all within his capacity to give back to where his journey started – Nigeria. Here’s hoping that more privileged Nigerians across the board will borrow a leaf.
See you next week.
