From Adedotun Aderoboye, Ondo
In line with the vision of the Ondo state government under the leadership of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu (SAN) to provide safe maternal healthcare services in the state, the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH) is rapidly becoming a major player in maternal healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
Chief Consultant at UNIMEDTH and an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Dr. Lawal Oyeneyin, declared this in an interview with The Hope in Ondo.
According to Dr. Oyeneyin, the department to Obstetrics and gynaecology of the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH) has been the busiest maternity centre among the teaching hospitals in the South Western part of Nigeria and one of the best performing in the country as a whole in the last three years.
His words “sometime in 2019, the World Health Organization launched a programme called ‘the maternity and prenatal database’ for quality, equity and dignity. The essence of the programme was to have a network of health institutions so that we can be able to gather data on women that delivered in those facilities and compare them across board to determine the degree of maternity services at the national, regional, state and facility level.”
“It was from that data gathering that it was well-established that UNIMEDTH had about 6500 deliveries and a maternal mortality ratio of 650 per 100,000 over a spate of three years. Focusing on the South West where we have well-established facilities, UNIMEDTH stands out as having had the highest number of deliveries while having the least number of staff attached to the department of Obstetrics and gynaecology. On maternal mortality ratio, we are also way below the average which has been given as 1,278 per 100,000.”
Dr. Oyeneyin praised the state government for providing the needed support which has helped strengthened the institution and enabled it to improve it’s services to be able to take care of people’s medical needs.
He said “Looking forward, we know that things can only get better. I am glad to say that in the area of infrastructure, the state government led by Arakunrin Akeredolu has gone ahead to build state of the arts edifices that are fully equipped with modern medical appliances that will help to serve the masses much professionally. We have seen an upsurge in the number of staff we have been able to bring into the system as well as regularization and clearance of arrears that were been owed.”
“Of course, we know that the work is not done. Why should we even have a maternal mortality at all? We need to look inward as a teaching hospital and come up with strategies to further improve on that figure so that we can aim for zero maternal mortality ratio. Other countries have been able to do it. There is no reason we cannot continue to do better.”
