The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom and Wellbeing Foundation Africa have announced a new partnership aimed at strengthening obstetric training for resident doctors in Nigeria.
The collaboration, funded by the Global Health Workforce Programme, seeks to enhance emergency obstetric and newborn care and establish two centres of excellence for advanced training in Nigeria.
The LSTM’s Emergency Obstetrics and Quality of Care Unit, which has extensive experience in delivering maternal and newborn health capacity-strengthening interventions across sub-Saharan Africa, will lead the project.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammed Pate, recently said that 57,000 mothers died from pregnancy and complications during childbirth in 2023 alone.
He noted that one of the leading causes of maternal mortality is postpartum haemorrhage, which accounts for a significant proportion of maternal deaths worldwide adding that the mortality rate among newborns, often attributed to birth asphyxia and complications related to premature births is equally alarming.
However, the principal investigator of the project and lead of the LSTM’s EmOC&QoC Unit, Professor Charles Ameh, highlighted the importance of the initiative in tackling the high maternal and newborn mortality rates in Nigeria.
