Adetoro A Adegoke

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom

Title: Improving Human Resources for Health in Nigeria using integrated approaches for sustainability

Abstract

Background: In Northern Nigeria, a chronic shortage of female health workers converges with social, cultural and religious norms which impact on women’s access to health care to produce some of the poorest maternal and new born health indicators in sub Saharan Africa: in 2013, women faced a one in nine lifetime risk of maternal death; 23.8% girls were married before age 18; only 19.5% and 12.3% of deliveries in the North East and North West were attended by a skilled provider, compared to 82% in the South East and South West. Moreover, rural deliveries in the north were three times less likely than those in urban areas to be attended by a skilled provider. The Women for Health (W4H) Programme was created to address the chronic shortage of female health workers in rural, underserved areas of six states of Northern Nigeria – Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Yobe and Zamfara.

Methods: To increase the number and quality of female health workers, the programme utilised integrated, bottom-up approaches involving: community, training institutions and government; and across multiple sectors including education, health, finance, gender, religion.

Results: Our integrated, multi-sectoral approaches made it possible for us to achieve sustainability across the whole system: financial; structural; legal; cultural. This focus on sustainability ensured that outstanding achievements were made. Number of female enrolled in training as health workers increased to 10,071; 2,801 young women enrolled in the FYP; 556 FYP students have graduated so far as trained health workers Of these, 80% employed, and 97% posted to rural areas; 82% of young women from rural communities say the FYP has enabled them to develop careers or become local champions; 95% of FYP students said their communities now show greater support for women’s employment; training college capacity: training places increased from 1,528 at inception to 3,915 at closing; 23 colleges with full accreditation (just one was, at inception); W4H contributed to 9 of the 13 WHO global Human Resources for Health strategy ambitions; and the number of health workers employed in the W4H-supported states nearly doubled by 2018.

Biography

Adetoro Adegoke is a Midwife with a PhD in Midwifery and Maternal Epidemiology. Her work focuses on improving maternal, newborn and child health in developing countries and strengthening the capacity of health training institutions. She has over 20 years’ experience in health programmes including design, implementation and evaluation. She was Lecturer in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She works with DAI Global Health, as the Technical Lead for Health Service Delivery and was the Technical Director on the UK-Aid funded Women for Health Programme. Adetoro is the Project Coordinator, for the World Health Organization six-Countries Strengthening Quality Midwifery Education Project. She is an Editorial Board Member for the Austin Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the International Journal of Nursing Education and Practice.

4th International Conference on Global Healthcare and Nutrition

Adetoro A Adegoke

Title: Improving Human Resources for Health in Nigeria using integrated approaches for sustainability

Abstract

Biography

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