Health: Stakeholders Urge Expansion Of Amuwo Odofin Health Centre
During the fifth yearly stakeholders/ town hall meeting of the Amuwo Odofin Maternal and Child Centre (AOMCC) this Wednesday, the residents of Amuwo Odofin and stakeholders urged the government to upgrade and expand the health centre to serve a larger audience.
Dr. Mercy Aloha, the service delivery Director of AOMCC, stated that the town hall meeting had been organised to interact with those in the facility, various stakeholders and people of the community to share their experiences and achievements. Dr. Aloha further said that it was an avenue to discuss the problems and ways to overcome challenges with the support of their partners.
Dr. Adeoye Taiwo, The Medical Director of AOMCC, said that he was quite pleased to get feedback and suggestions from partners and community members on how the AOMCC could be moved forward. He mentioned that the next step is for the facility to act immediately on what has been said, upgrade and improve in terms of services to the public.
“Upgrading the facility is of course beyond our capability. It has to come from the state government. I am happy that we have representatives of the state government here and we are hoping that they would give feedback to the government on all what have been said here today.”
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In a response as to how they had been able to reduce the mortality rate between mothers and children in the facility, Dr. Taiwo explained that the facility established, on a monthly basis, what is called a maternal and prenatal death surveillance report.
“What we do in those meetings is to look at the mortality rate both in terms of the mother and child. We look at the factors that are responsible for the deaths. The ones that we feel that are preventable from our own side in terms of the facility, provision of equipment and in terms of response, we will look at them and look for ways to improve on them so that we can reduce the mortality rate. Then, the ones that are coming from outside, from the communities, we may not be able to impact on that but at our various meetings with them, we tend to educate them on the things that we think can reduce the mortality from that end.”
“Some of our partners are the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), road safety officers, drivers association, Muslim community members, Christian community members, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa community people. This town hall meeting helps us to discuss what we have learnt so far, what the public expectations are and if we are meeting up with those expectations, what problems we have and how they can partner with us to solve them. We have been doing it for the past five years and it has helped us to solve difficult situations, change them and improve on our services. Our aim is to take Amuwo Odofin to the height and make it the best hospital in Lagos State. We ask that the government and general public continue to partner with us to move this hospital to greater heights in rendering quality health services to our community.”
