Residents of Amuwo Odofin and stakeholders of the Amuwo Odofin Maternal and Child Centre (AOMCC) have urged the government to upgrade and expand the facility to serve a larger audience
The Amuwo Odofin Maternal and Child Centre (AOMCC) in Lagos State says it recorded 2,500 deliveries out of 3,040 antenatal bookings in 2021, accounting for an average of no fewer than 210 babies monthly and in terms of mortality has been encouraging as only seven deaths were recorded.
This statistics were revealed at their annual stakeholders town hall meeting which held on 11th May 2022.
The Service delivery Director of MCC, Dr. Mercy Aloha, said the town hall meeting was organised to interact with those in the facility, various stakeholders and people of the community to share their experiences and achievements.
Aloha further said that it was an avenue to discuss the problems and ways to overcome challenges with the support of their partners.
Dr Taiwo Adeiyi, the Medical Director of AOMCC said it was a great achievement for the hospital bearing in mind the challenges it was facing.
He said that some of the challenges they had to cope with include: population size, inadequate infrastructure and manpower.
Adeiyi said that the hospital’s management had been able to cope with the situation by improving the morale of the staff by giving incentives and rewards.
He noted 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.
He said:
“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.”
“The Health Service Commission (HSC) is trying to fill this void but we are losing medical personnel to brain drain,” he said.
He said that despite the achievements recorded, there were still opportunities for further growth, which he said could only be attained if upgraded to the status of a general hospital.
“If this is done, we can have medical, surgical, ophthalmology and other related departments and also incorporate our male counterparts into our services.
“Even for mother and child, those who need surgical and medical emergencies can be better accommodated within our facilities instead of referring them to other places,” he said.
He urged the state government to help provide the necessary infrastructure, saying that the hospital has a wide expanse of land, so the upgrade could be achieved as soon as possible.
Also, Dr Ademuyiwa Eniayewun, the Permanent Secretary, HSC, said that there was a blueprint where it was proposed that the centre should be upgraded to a hospital and that such would also need the cooperation of the community.
Eniayewun commended the hospital for living up to and delivering its dream in the areas of service delivery; particularly in the area of emergency response, customer and staff satisfaction.
Similarly, Dr Olumuyiwa Solanke, Commissioner One at HSC, advised AOMCC’s management to seek the collaboration of the community, including politicians, philanthropists and corporate organisations in developing its infrastructure.
In response to how they have been able to curb mortality rate between the mother and children in the facility, Dr Taiwo revealed that the facility carry on a monthly basis what is called 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.”
Dr Aloha further stated: “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.”
Amuwo Odofin MCC with the core value “Respect for Human lives” has been in the top front of delivering quality health services to residents of Amuwo Odofin since its commission on the 21st of January, 2014.