State Government to spend N12bn on child, maternal mortality
The Ondo State Government on Tuesday disclosed that it will spend N12 billion in fighting child and maternal mortality in the state.
The government also explained that the money would be spent through the Immunisation Plus and Malaria Progress by Accelerating Coverage and Transforming Services Project.
The IMPACT Project Manager, Dr Kunle Omode, stated this at a stakeholders engagement meeting on the IMPACT Project, in Akure, the state capital.
Omode also explained that the project, which will end in December 2025, started late last year and over N1.5 billion had been spent so far with the plan to spend an additional N12 billion this year.
According to him, the project is about improving immunisation services, productive maternal and child health care service delivery as well as nutrition and malaria prevention and treatment.
He added that the state government had engaged stakeholders across all local governments and wards in the state in order to combat malaria and the mortality of mothers and children.
He explained, “IMPACT project is about improving immunisation services, productive maternal and child health care service delivery and as well as nutrition and malaria prevention and treatment.
“This project is a five-year project, Ondo State started last year and the implementation is ending in December 2025. So far we have spent N1.5 billion across the malaria and immunization plus project. This year we have a plan to spend up to N12 billion for malaria and immunisation plus activities.”
Speaking on the achievements of the project so far, he said, “The state started late last year and within the short period of time, we have been able to engage non-state actors for the procurement of net for the prevention of malaria, we have engaged NGO to ensure capacity building for health workers in the state, procurement of drugs is underway, we have done so many social meetings with stakeholders across the LG among others.
“We have also done training of health management information state officers across the 18 LG and 203 health facilities in the state, the state government have procured 216 new laptops for all the head management information facilities to enable them to enter data directly from the health facility to the national platform thereby changing the narrative from manual paper to digital.
“This will have long-term effects in improving the quality of data that will be coming from health facilities.
“We have also concluded a plan to engage the community village health workers that will create demands, they will be the ones to provide information to women, children and households in the communities and they will also refer those with symptoms that need to be referred to the health centres.”
Omode also disclosed that the state government had commenced community engagement that will address many topics such as nutrition, malaria, immunization, Lassa fever, among others.
