Dr Tunde Segun, E4A-MamaYe’s Country Director in Nigeria joined colleagues from our Evidence4Action (E4A) Ethiopia programme in Addis this week at the Second Annual Conference of the African Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (AFOG), and 25th Annual Conference and Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Ethiopian Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (ESOG).
E4A were delighted to support the pre-conference seminar on perinatal death surveillance and response (PDSR), an interactive session that gave local participants an overview of the proposed national PDSR system in Ethiopia as well as an opportunity to become familiar with the tools which will be used in the surveillance system.
During the main conference, attended by around 400 participants from across Africa, including representatives from Ministries of Health, United Nations partners and non-governmental organisations, Dr Segun delivered a presentation entitled: ‘Using scorecards to catalyse action for improvements in maternal and newborn survival in three states in Nigeria’.
Throughout his presentation Dr. Segun spoke of how the E4A-MamaYe programme utilises scorecards to highlight priority areas to inform evidence-based decision making and catalyse stakeholders take action to improve maternal and newborn survival and advocate for improvements in quality of care. He discussed E4A-MamaYe’s experience in working in secondary facilities in Bauchi, Lagos, and Ondo States to train health providers on Maternal & Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) and support the establishment of facility-level MPDSR Committees. In line with the National guidelines, E4A-MamaYe has trained stakeholders at the State-level on MPDSR to form the State-level MPDSR committees.
Stories of success
In Ondo State, no deaths from haemorrhage were reported in a quarter (October to December 2015) due to preventative action being taken, based on scorecard data. Sepsis is now the leading cause of maternal deaths in the State and stakeholders committed to tackling this by stressing on personal hygiene for pregnant women, discouraging use of leaves, cow dung etc. to dress wounds and tackling fake drugs in health facilities as well as ensuring that the more effective and expensive antibiotics are placed in the free drug list for use on women in need.
In Bauchi, the most recent quarterly review findings found anaemia to be the leading cause of maternal death. Based on these findings, stakeholders committed to take action to reduce maternal anaemia, including deworming women in rural communities and providing nutritional education during antenatal care and ensuring functional blood banks in all the secondary facilities.
Dr Segun’s presentation was well attended and generated a rich discussion, with participants eager to know more about multi-disciplinary team involvement, other settings of how communities have been involved and how legal frameworks support MPDSRs.
Find out more about strengthening accountability for improved maternal and newborn health.