In furtherance of its objectives to stem high rate of maternal and child mortality, the Lagos State Government has concluded plans to provide toll free emergency call lines dedicated to attend to urgent issues pertaining to pregnant women and nursing mothers.
The wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dame Abimbola Fashola, revealed this on Thursday at a town hall meeting on Maternal and Child Mortality Reduction held at the Oshodi-Isolo Council Secretariat.
The Lagos first lady said the emergency toll-free lines would become functional before the next town hall meeting, saying it would go a long way to reduce the incidence of maternal mortality especially at the grassroot level.
Mrs. Fashola explained that available statistics have shown that Nigeria is one of the five countries that account for the high mortality rate across the world, assuring that all hands must be on deck for the nation to exit that list.
She said, “This is a situation that I am personally interested in ensuring that we do not only talk of reducing but totally eradicating maternal and child mortality. Here in Lagos, we only want to be associated with things that win awards, we don’t want things that cause pain
“Hopefully, before the next town hall meeting, we would be able to introduce the toll free hotlines to ensure that by October when the Maternal and Child reduction programme clocks one year, we would have made success in this regard.”
Mrs. Fashola charged those at the town hall meeting to become health ambassadors by educating pregnant women in their immediate environment on the need to patronize primary Health Care(PHC) facilities in their areas.
She noted that though it was the responsibility of government to provide necessary infrastructure at its healthcare centres, the planned reduction in mother and child mortality would not be achieved if the PHCs are not patronized.
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