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The lawmaker representing Oluyole federal constituency in the House of Representatives and Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora, Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, has said she decided to empower local birth attendants to reduce child and mother mortality rate in the constituency.
Speaking with newsmen after presenting equipment to 30 local birth attendants on Sunday, Akande-Sadipe said the birth attendants have been trained on how to take safe delivery and improve on the process.
She said: We are here today because of Oluyole federal constituency and my people. We had a five-day programme to empower the local birth attendants; It is an area of particular importance to me because the child and mother mortality rate is a key priority to me.
“We use a lot of local birth attendants in this area, if they are well trained and they have the proper equipment to do their work, there is going to be an improvement.”
The lawmaker revealed that the beneficiaries were taken to the University College Hospital (UCH) to try and forge a relationship with medical practitioners.
“As part of the training, they went through a module on how to recognise when there is an emergency and when to refer to a doctor for more care.
“UCH collaborated with us on it; it is a programme that was run by the Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research. Each birth attendant is leaving here today with a lot of equipment.
“They are going to get beds, sthetoscopes weighing scales and so on. They are going to get everything a doctor has in his office except surgical equipment for cutting because they are not allowed to cut. They only thing they are not going to take home that you you would find in a standard maternity home is the surgical stuffs,” she added.
Akande-Sadipe further stated that she will always stand-in for the people of the federal constituency, saying “wherever I can help to alleviate the poverty and suffering of my people, I will do that.”