Dr Olasunmbo Makinde speaking during the event
By Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
With maternal mortality ratio of 512 deaths per 100, 000 live birth in 2018, maternal deaths in Nigeria is still unacceptably high.
This was the verdict of the Special Guest and Honourable Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Ali Pate, who was represented by Dr Samuel Oyeniyi, Director, Reproductive Health Division, at the Maternal Healthcare Quality Improvement Summit 2025 which took place at the Lagos Marriott Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos State, on May 15, 2025.
The theme of the summit organised by Project Aisha, which ensures a community- led, quality improvement-driven, and technology-enabled approach to maternal health, was “Mothers Matter: What does it take to stop Maternal Deaths? Closing Quality Gaps in Maternal Healthcare “
The Minister called on all the states of the Federation to show commitment in reducing maternal mortality and said stated need to establish department of family health. He further stressed the need for Health Insurance which he said would reduce out-of-pocket issues.
He said that progress is being made in every area of maternal Health even though the progress is a bit slow, “But the honest thing is that no woman should die giving birth. Yes maternal mortality ratio of 513 deaths per 100, 000 live birth is still high. With the three digits maternal deaths in Nigeria it is unacceptably high.”
He said there is need to look at the ratio and find a way of reducing maternal death to the barest minimum.
He called those working to reduce maternal mortality accelerators for quality of care in one way or the other,, adding that the war against maternal mortality is a collective effort and what is needed is quality of care which helps to attain maternal health by ensuring that every pregnant woman received effective, acceptable safe, efficient and respectful care throughout pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal period.
The Minister said the whole goal is to reduce maternal mortality, to improve health outcomes, and and lastly to improve health equity.
He said systemic challenges associated with maternal deaths are being tackled and there is need to involve communities to remove delay in the care of pregnant women, adding that there is need to get to facility on time. He also harped on girl child education.
On her part, Dr Olasunmbo Makinde, Project Manager, Project Aisha, Health Strategy and Delivery Foundation (HSDF) speaking on what the project stands for said, “According to our finding we discovered that Aisha is the most popular name in Nigeria, we also found out that Aisha means well and alive, and we agreed that really defines what we are doing. We want to make sure that every mother ends her maternal journey alive and well, and the baby is well and alive too, that is the reason we thought of Project Aisha.
“Project Alisha is unique because it’s not what the health worker believes are the drivers of maternal health but to also understand what women think of when you talk of maternal health from the women’s perspective. And when we talk about project Aisha we talk about leveraging women’s voices. We want to understand what women think when it comes to their health, how can we improve the kind of healthcare they get in the facilities and even in the communities, those that prefer the community birth attendants and that is the hallmark of what we are doing at project Aisha,” Makinde stated.
Makinde who also expressed joy for a successful summit said “I am excited, it was a big work and it is here. I think for me it is not just having great minds in the room, but it is more like for us to tell the world the beautiful work we are doing, and to share our methodology. In sharing our methodology is the launch of the change document , our hope and expectation is that the document is adopted at the national level and even in the states we are and beyond the states where we are working to ensure it can be used as a guide to continue to improve the work when it comes to maternal health.”
Still operating in Lagos and Kaduna, Makinde disclosed that the project would be taken to other states based on the availability of funds. “That means talking to more and more funders but even if we are not able to attract funding especially with the dwindling funding, globally, our hope is that with the use of this change document we will be able to attract funding internally,” she stated.
Kendra Njoku, Senior Quality Improvement Adviser and Faculty, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) one of the consortium partners that implement Project Aisha working strongly with the Lagos State Ministry of Health and Kaduna State Ministry of Health.
She said the aim of Project Aisha is to reduce maternal death and prevent women dying from pregnancy and pregnancy related causes, obstetrics complications, that is, complications that occur when a woman is pregnant.
Dr Njoku said, “We want to reduce this by 20%, and we have been doing this since 2022. And today is like show and tell, show our result. So far we have been able to reduce maternal death to about 58% in the 32 facilities we have worked with in both Lagos State and Kaduna State.”
Speaking on the theme, she said, “Well no woman should die from pregnancy. Pregnancy is not a disease, no woman should die from pregnancy and we are saying what does it take to stop women from dying? Our statistics for maternal death is so high , we are one of the top two people causing maternal death contributing about 28% of maternal death worldwide just Nigeria. That statistics is something that needs to change. You see we can’t rely on external funding, so how can we commit to saving this life by our own funding? It really requires intentional leadership and commitment, not just doing the talk but really doing the work, to really bring together that collaboration, it needs multi sectoral collaboration, the ministry of Women Affairs ensuring women quality health, engaging communities, the people who influence these women, their spouses, their mother-in-laws, their mother, the elderly women who determine where these women go to give birth, all these people need to be engaged and collaborated with so they work within their boundaries, understanding when to refer these women to seek care in the formal health sector.
“These are one of the things, we need to make sure we created an enabling environment. Why are our health care workers leaving in droves , the Japa syndrome, because they don’t have the enabling environment to do their work, we need to make sure the right infrastructure are in place, essential commodities are in place not that a woman gives birth and she is bleeding out just because we are out of stock of oxytocin, a lifesaving drug that is administered to the woman it can control the bleeding.
“Unnecessary death is so painful because a woman dying from pregnancy affects a generation, the lives of the children, and the new born baby that she has left behind,” Dr Njoku maintained.
