***inaugurates committee to visit communities
The Bayelsa State Government has inaugurated a campaign committee to spread the message of the Safe Motherhood Initiative which was recently launched by the government.
The launching of the safe motherhood initiative took place during the Maiden Summit on Infant and Maternal Mortality.
The State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Daniel Iworiso-Markson said the committee is saddled with the responsibility of taking the message of Safe Motherhood to all communities in the state.
He said, “We will be working with the Ministry of Health and the Primary Health Care Board. We will take this message to every community. We are going to deploy every means available to us whether conventional or unconventional. But focus would be given to the unconventional, why, because we need to get this message to everybody if we have to.
“We want at the end of the day to bring everybody particularly the pregnant women, whether they are married or not, so long as you are a resident of this state and you are pregnant. Our role as Ministry of Information and Orientation will be to ensure that the message gets to every person in our community.
“We will be working with key stakeholders in every community because all hands have to be on deck. It is sad that we are losing our pregnant women but we now have the responsibility to put a stop to that.
”It is not a job for one man and that is why we said all hands must be on deck. Those whose names would be called today will serve as the coordinators but every Information Officer in the states, a number of them are in our local governments but are not members of this committee so they will serve as sub committee members”.
“It is important to note that we need the help of the media to help us because this reach-out exercise will not be complete without the help of the media and I want to crave your indulgence to assist us all the way.”
The Commissioner explained that Dickson was concerned about the lives of pregnant women and has created the opportunity to ensure that the state records zero rate of infant and maternal mortality.
He called on people of the state, especially those in the rural areas to accord the committee all the assistance they need in order to make their job smooth.
On his part, the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Ebitimitula Etebu lauded Dickson for approving the sensitization campaign, saying the committee will go to each household, identify pregnant women and other categories of health status in every household.
He said, “This committee is going to get the records of pregnant women. They will make sure that every pregnant woman is informed as regards this initiative and the incentives to each pregnant woman to ensure that they come to the facilities we have and be attended to by birth attendants”.
Also speaking the Chairperson of the State Primary Health Care Board, Mrs. Victoria Denenu described the assignment of the committee as very important.
She appealed to members of the committee, to make sure every woman goes to the community health centre nearest to them to register, stressing that no woman must die as a result of pregnancy related cause.
Responding on behalf of the committee, the chairman, Mr. Chris Odi expressed appreciation for the honour to serve and promised to diligently carry out the assignment.