Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari has called on the private sector to invest in Life saving interventions in order to save 3,277 women which constitute five percent that die yearly.
The First Lady made the call yesterday at the Private sector advocacy meeting for investment in Reproductive, Maternal Newborn, Child, Adolescents Health and Nutrition in Nigeria (RMNCAH+N), put together by her pet project, Future Assured, at the State House Conference Center, Abuja.
She stated that savin five percent (16,385 women) over five years would involve providing 2,013,000 women with life saving interventions.
According to her, achieving this would cost N58,381.31 to save one life, adding that saving 16,385 women would cost a total of N3,310,849,143.05.
Mrs. Buhari also stated that she targets to save 30,711 children in the next one year.
To save five percent (153,555 children under five years) over five years would involve providing 1,472,235 children with life saving interventions.
To achieve this, it would cost N28,454.51 to save one life. To save 153,555 children it would cost a total of N13,247,981,620.75.
According to her, the ugly trend where over 58,000 women lose theirs from pregnancy related complications like excessive bleeding after childbirth, hypertension in pregnancy, unsafe abortions, infections and obstructed labour must be reversed.
She also said a situation where 839,500 children do not make it to their fifth birthday every year as a result of deaths caused by malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, HIV, malnutrition, must also be halted.
Her intervention for Newborn and child health in one year include: Save 1 life N28,454.51; Save 10 lives N284,545.10; Save 100 lives N2,845,451.00; and Save 1000 lives N28,454,519.00.
She said that it was sad that Nigeria contributes substantially to the global maternal and child mortality burden with negative impact on the socio economic status of the nation.
Mrs. Buhari said, “We are aware that several programmes on maternal and child health are ongoing and that we have made significant progress in the recent times. However, there is still much left to be done. We are also aware that every sector including the private sector here represented has a critical role to play in order to change the statusquo, which is why I have convened this meeting.
“My foundation Aisha Buhari Foundation, through the Future Assured Programme is committed to contribute to the acceleration of efforts to end preventable material, newborn and child dealtha through advocacy and the strengthening of accountability mechanism to enhance the peace and development of Nigeria.
“We have heard from the presenters today, the number of women who die while giving birth across the nation. If we put human faces to these figures, we would move from seeing numbers to actually seeing our wives, sisters, children, clients, neighbours, employees and colleagues dying every day. This is beyond women speaking for women. It is about preserving our humanity; itbis about us taking collective responsibility to secure a better a Nigeria for everyone to thrive.”
The First Lady called on the private sector, who she said are directly affected by its development as such have invaluable role to play, to look out for innovative ways of buildings partnerships to achieve the goal of improving the health sector.
While noting that a number of them were already involved in the process, she urged others to look at the investment menu, which will guide them on the number of lives their investment will be saving.
Others in attendance were the ministers, wives of the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, governors and wives of security agencies as well as representatives of the private sector, who all made commitments to ensure the wife of the president meets her targets of saving lives of women and children.