Nigerian Government, Media, to partner in promoting Women and Children Health

Nigerian Government and the Media have pledged to promote the wellbeing of women, children, adolescent and the elderly persons in the country.

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This is a commitment made at a media engagement with the Federal Ministry of Health on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Adolescent, Elderly health plus Nutrition RMNCAEH multi-stakeholder partnership in Abuja, Nigeria.

Minister of health Dr. Osagie Ohanire said the aim is to set the foundation for effective engagement with the media in harnessing relative strengths of diverse stakeholders and create opportunities to leverage resources towards maximizing outcomes and attaining a shared Nigerian vision.

According to the Minister, “the health policy identifies Reproductive, Newborn, Child, Adolescent and Elderly Health plus Nutrition, as one of its priorities, with the goal of reducing maternal, neonatal, child, adolescent and elderly morbidity and mortality in Nigeria, and promoting universal access to sexual and reproductive heath services for adolescent and adults throughout their life cycle”.

Ohanire said the present health indices of children, women and the elderly is poor, attributable to inadequate enlightenment and information, hence the need for stronger partnership with the media as major stakeholders.

According to him “the deleterious practices inevitably increase susceptibility to infections, slow down recovery from illness and contributes to preventable morbidity and mortality rates especially among women and elderly. There is therefore the need to strengthen engagement with the media institutions and improve strategic communication tools, working with various media platforms to drive social and behaviour change and influence attitudes towards Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Adolescent and Elderly plus Nutrition”.

The health minister promised to be engaging the media every two weeks and to support them.

In a remark, Minister of state for health Dr. Adeleke Mamora identified the role of the Media as critical in creating awareness on issues of public interest, calling on the professionals to develop media strategies in bringing up to date information and education towards health promotion.

Speaking on behalf of media professionals, the Dean of press, Mr. Yusuf Ali, pledged media support in public health awareness and appealed to the federal ministry of health for access to information as well as inclusion of the media in it’s annual budget.

“Let us continue to dialogue, let us continue to communicate, so from time to time we compare notes, this country belongs to all of us, we have no other country, we are also stakeholders, we want to help you to succeed, we want a situation whereby before you leave office, at the press of a botton if we need information from the Ministry of health let us have that, if you are going on tour we have health reporters, let them follow you, let them see something, say something and write something“. Yusuf mentioned.

The occasion featured the launch of 2021 operational plan of the Nigeria Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Adolescent, Elderly plus Nutrition, compiled by the Department of family health federal ministry of health and the over view of their activities.