Primary Health Care Management Board Offers Free Health Service For Mother And Child
A maternal and child worker personnel in the Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board, Dr. Tamunobelema Jaja, has urged women to avail themselves of the opportunity in the ongoing nationwide free health care service so as to reduce maternal and child mortality across the state.
Dr. Jaja who made the call at the flag-off ceremony of the Maternal New Born and Child Health in Port Harcourt Week campaign slated for Monday, 10th June through Friday, 14th June, 2019, regretted that high maternal, child mortality and mobility rate is on the increase. She added that the idea of the program is to help reduce mobility and mortality among women and children and also to improve their well-being.
As part of activities marking the week-long programme certain interventions such as Vitamin A supplement, deworming tablets, nutrition screening, birth registrations, availability of long lasting nets for children especially under the age of 5 years which she said will help to improve the well-being among these children would be given free across all the health centre in the state as well as General Hospitals and some private hospitals that are part of the programme.
Dr. Jaja disclosed that pregnant women would also have free anti-natal care registration, routing drugs, malaria treatment for pregnant women that are above 13 weeks of gestation, long lasting nets, and free delivery service for any pregnant woman whose delivery falls within the week, at any primary health centre would have her delivery taken free.
According to her, all women of child bearing age and other care givers will be given other family planning commodities, HIV testing services for the child bearing age and talks on the importance of birth registration and the need for every child to be registered.
Explaining further, Dr. Jaja said school children will be visited so as to give them vitamin A, deworming tablets, to check the children nutritionals status and also counsel them on what to do if their nutritional status are not what it should be.
She therefore charged al women and children to visit the health centres for their health needs, adding that it will impact positively on the state’s maternal and child mortality rate.
