As a way to give back positively to the society, Coca- Cola has launched a Safe birth initiative to tackle the problem of high mortality death rate during child bearing in Nigeria.
The workshop which was held in Lagos during the weekend was themed, “Enabling Safe Birth in Nigeria”.
The stakeholders workshop was held under the Safe Birth Initiative (SBI) sponsored by Coca-Cola in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health, the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals and an NGO, Medshare International Inc.
According to the organisation, the Safe Birth Initiative is aimed to support the attainment of the SDG targets on maternal and newborn deaths reduction.
“This will focus on strengthening the capacity of selected public hospitals through procurement of vital maternal and neonatal medical equipment and supplies; training biomedical engineering technicians to improve equipment maintenance and uptime; and reactivating a large stock of abandoned medical equipment wasting away in public hospitals”.
The workshop also marked the completion of the maiden SBI capacity training for 20 biomedical engineering technicians from 10 leading medical institutions across the country, comprising university hospitals, federal medical centres and general hospitals.
The two-week training was conducted by US-based Engineering World Health (EWH) at the School of Biomedical Engineering, Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
In his opening remarks at the event, Public Affairs & Communications Director for Coca-Cola West Africa, Clem Ugorji, shared highlights of the SBI rationale and implementation plan.
He said in addition to completing the first batch of the biomedical engineering technicians training, the consignment of equipment and supplies required for the National Hospital, Abuja had been fully delivered; the consignments for Federal Medical Centres in Ebute-Metta and Owerri and General Hospital, Alimosho, Lagos were scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks; while needs assessments were ongoing at six other approved hospitals to determine their specific needs.
Ugorji noted that Coca-Cola’s commitment goes beyond donating equipment.
“Through SBI, the company hopes to promote effective maintenance culture by empowering biomedical engineering technicians with the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence to take responsibility for ensuring maximum uptime for the new equipment, as well as reactivation of abandoned biomedical equipment in the target hospitals.
“There is a limit to what our doctors and nurses can do with just their skills and passion, in the absence of the vital life-saving equipment required for effective diagnosis, testing and treatment”, he said.
According to the National Demographics and Health Survey (NDHS, 2013), Nigeria loses as many as 576 women per 100,000 childbirths and 37 newborn deaths per 1,000 live births, placing the country among the worst ratios for both maternal and newborn deaths globally.