STRENGTHENING EMERGENCY OBSTETRIC AND NEWBORN CARE AND FAMILY PLANNING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA FY 11 ANNUAL REPORT

The program was implemented by MCHIP Nigeria, with funding from USAID/Nigeria, and was part of the USAID/Nigeria's strategic objective 13, Increased Use of Child Survival and Reproductive Health Services. The program's life-of-project objective was to increase the utilization of quality emergency obstetric and newborn care services by pregnant women, mothers, and their newborns in selected LGAs in three states. To achieve this objective, MCHIP had six intermediate results, including improving the enabling environment and scale-up of best practices for emergency obstetric and newborn care at national and state levels, increasing the availability and distribution of emergency obstetric and newborn care trained health care workers in selected LGAs, and improving the quality of emergency obstetric and newborn care services in selected LGAs. During the first three quarters of FY11, MCHIP achieved several program activities, including training 19 trainers for the Society for Family Health in Balanced Counseling Strategy for family planning, collaborating with the TSHIP project to facilitate a Training of Trainers course on community mobilization, and conducting an SBM-R training course for 65 participants in Bauchi State. MCHIP also collaborated with the Kano State Ministry of Health to build the capacity of family planning service providers working in MCHIP-supported health facilities on family planning commodity logistic management. In addition, MCHIP donated copies of its emergency obstetric and newborn care manuals to the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital in response to a request from the Head of the OB-GYN Department, and donated one delivery kit to the Tattarawa PHC in Kano to jumpstart admission of pregnant women in labor for delivery services. MCHIP also hosted the USAID Senior Health Advisor, HPN Team, Dr. John Quinley, during a visit to the MCHIP Kano Field Office and its supported health facilities and communities. Furthermore, MCHIP organized a series of one-day emergency obstetric and newborn care orientations for 178 NYSC medical and para-medical graduates, as well as sociology graduates, in three State Camps, and trained 5 faculty staff at the Kano School of Midwifery in neonatal resuscitation using an anatomic model. MCHIP also oriented a total of 296 health care professionals to neonatal resuscitation under the Helping Babies Breathe program and procured and distributed 60 NeoNatalie anatomical models. The program's quarterly report for Q4 FY11 highlighted several achievements, including the completion of a Training of Trainers course on community mobilization, the facilitation of a pre-service education situation analysis in Bauchi and Sokoto States, and the conduct of an SBM-R training course for 65 participants in Bauchi State. The report also noted that MCHIP had committed $6,150,000 to the program as of September 30, 2011, and had expended $417,020.93 during the quarter. Overall, the Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care and Family Planning in Northern Nigeria program aimed to improve the quality of emergency obstetric and newborn care services in selected LGAs in Kano, Katsina, and Zamfara States, and to increase the utilization of these services by pregnant women, mothers, and their newborns. The program's achievements during the first three quarters of FY11 demonstrated progress towards achieving this objective.