By Rauf Oyewole
A disturbing revelation about child mortality has been made public by the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS), saying only three of 10 child deliveries take place at health care centres, representing 68.9 percent.
The data also showed that such practice is similar in Gombe and Taraba states. According to the data, in Taraba 67 percent of the deliveries take place at home while 5 of 10 deliveries in Gombe take place at home.
Shockingly, the data also showed that only 3 of 10 children have access to postnatal care in Bauchi and Taraba while only half of the infants in Gombe have access to postnatal care. In the three states, NDHS revealed that 3 of 10 are not accessing immunisation.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and SDGs, by 2030, nations should have reduced neonatal mortality rate to 17 in every 1,000 births. As of 2023, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia record about 3 percent. Ghana (21), Niger (34.3) and Nigeria (41).
Corroborating this, a pediatrician with JUTH, Dr. Adah Ruth, said that death of a child is a great loss to humanity, saying every child deserves to live as guaranteed by the constitution and universally accepted in the child rights convention.
Speaking on Thursday in Jos at a one-day media dialogue, organised by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ruth said that a death of any child is a “loss of genetic code” of such a baby. “Every child carries a potential to solve a problem in this life but loosing such baby means missing that potential.”
According to her, mortality rate of a country means a lot about the nation. “It means a lot about the political will, health indicators and environmental health. So many things come play when a child dies. Factors like social-economic development, environmental, quality of health, access to healthcare and health system and other things.
“If Elon Musk had died as a baby who would have been solving some problems he is solving today? This means every child deserves to live and we must all play our roles to bring down child mortality,” she said.
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