Ayeeshat J Ahmad
The National Emergency Medical Services and Ambulance System (NEMSA) has engaged stakeholders in Kano state to begin the implementation of the rural ambulance and transportation services for pregnant women in rural areas in the state.
Speaking during stakeholders engagement workshop/meeting for its implementation, NEMSA National Coordinator, represented by its consultant, prof Mohammed Hamza, said the program was aimed to provide emergency medical services to Nigerians including cases of accident, trauma, disease outbreaks and most importantly emergencies that involves delivery and the new born.
According to him, the current initiative built on existing emergency services within the country now targets pregnant women and the new born, aiming at preventing maternal mortality in impacts program states.
“Mainly the program targets women in rural areas particularly looking at the challenges of the provision and assessing of medical services in rural areas,” he emphasized.
In his remarks, the Director of Medical services from the state ministry of health, Dr. Shehu Abdullahi, highlighted that the intervention by the federal government is to help the state to tackle any emergency from the rural areas in terms of having access to a facility for medical services.
To achieved that, he said the state has formed the State Medical and Emergency and Ambulance System(SEMSAS) where they provide ambulance service to convey emergency patients from communities to a facilities.
“We have formed program implementation unit at the Murtala Mohammed specialist hospital with a call centre whereby if there is any emergency, they will call that centre and the centre will send an ambulance to go and pick that patient to a facility.”
Dr. Abdullahi however assured that the program would go a long way in reducing maternal mortality in the state, noting that, report has shown that one of the major reason for high maternal mortality rate was due to bad transportation system to convey patients at the appointed to a facility.
In a related development, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Abubakar Yusuf, while leading the symbolic commencement of the Project 10 million Campaign for screening of hypertension and diabetes in the state called on the public to utilise the one week screening period to confirm their status any any public facility in the state.
He noted that, those found with the ailments would be provided with free drugs or be referred to the nearest facility for continued monitoring.