‘Sola Fagorusi
Research has shown repeatedly that ladies are most times raped by people they trust. It has nothing to do with the type of cloth the lady is putting on. Or how else does one explain rape of 10 year olds and even toddlers. The life imprisonment law passed by the House of Representative in 2013 for those convicted of rape is in order. Nevertheless, users of social media, especially of the opposite sex, need to exercise restraint especially when meeting people they have met through social media. Rape is also one of those ills that feed into the problem of teenage pregnancy and maternal deaths which also perpetually add up to the national and international figure of maternal mortality especially where proper medical attention is not offered the mother. Our culture of silence makes verification of this fact tough.
Maternal Mortality Ratio refers to the number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth, per 100,000 live births. In 2010, the figure was put at 545. The World Bank’s modelled estimate currently puts the figure at 840/100,000. Maternal mortality is a tragedy; one that is even worse than Boko Haram given the figures. Maternal death is the “death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.”
The Millennium Development Goal Five is to improve maternal health by 2015. Nigeria is a signatory to this United Nations declaration. Given the use of new media in other nations to solve this problem, we may wish to take a cue from India as the country continues to solve its maternal mortality problem using mobile phones. Called ‘Lifeline Channel’, the app is deployed to send tips directly to the phone of rural women in local languages. It uses “rhymes, songs, and interactive games to spread maternal health tips and rudimentary but crucial information.” Developed in 2003, Lifetime Channel reaches 500,000 women. Pregnant women registered on the platform get customised information weekly on the state of the pregnancy. It reminds of even immunization schedules for the new born. The channel is used to send information on what health service is due to whom and when. The government has also been able to use this to create employment by recruiting volunteers in the villages who deploy Lifeline Channel and are paid incentives based on the number of women they can ensure follow through the instructions sent to their phones and deliver safely in approved hospitals.
The ‘Not Again Campaign’ launched by Development Communications Network last week in Nigeria is focused on reducing maternal mortality in Nigeria. The three years project with funding from the MacArthur Foundation is to be implemented in Lagos, Kaduna, Jigawa and FCT with hope to enhance accountability and demand for quality in maternal health services while bridging the gap between the media, civil society organisation and communities. The new media technology of news reporting may also be a direction this project would have to look at. Under reporting of maternal deaths in the rural communities may change if social media users with contacts in those places push out information of such needless deaths or near death instances into the public space. The campaign on twitter can be accessed through #NotAgainCampaign #EndMaternalDeath
One is hoping that the same vigour that is used up in the discussions of Boko Haram attacks and plane crashes would also duplicated to discuss maternal health challenges on social media spaces. UNICEF reports that every day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds and 145 women of child bearing age making the country the second largest contributor to maternal and infant mortality in the world. Nigeria is second only to India whose population is about eight times that of Nigeria!
Maybe allocating more to health instead of defence is a right proposal. In 2013, the Federal Government allocated 5.6% of the total government budget to health, despite signing and committing to the Abuja Declaration 12 years earlier. The declaration agreed that governments were to spend a minimum of 15% on citizens’ health. By the 2013 figures, it means government currently allocates N1,709 per person for health down from N1,782 in 2012. An infograph would show this better.
Women in Nigeria still die needless deaths despite government promises and commitments to improving the state of maternal newborn and child health. In a government hospital in Abuja last year, I recall seeing a man weep profusely. He had just lost his wife after she gave birth to twins. At that point, maternal mortality was no longer a statistics; I had just seen one indirect victim. My heads are not in the cloud over using new media especially knowing that technology would not work unless the infrastructures are put in place. I am however hoping we can use new media and open data to set the agenda on what needs to be done. The proposition is meant to be in harmony with other interventions.
What would open data do for maternal health? Solving a problem like maternal mortality begins with statistics. Can the government as a compliment launch a movement for open data around maternal health issues as part of its post-2015 agenda especially as it is obvious that Nigeria cannot meet the MDG goal five?
Open data would let civil society actors and even government know where interventions are urgently needed. Open data for instances would let us know how many primaries, secondary and tertiary health centres with provisions for Maternal and Child Care are available across the 774 local governments in Nigeria. It would in addition tell us the location of such centres and the population per MCC centres that are available. Open data would also help government know what the ratio of medical personnel to patients are in these locations. We can also tell what number of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) that is in the country and integrate them for proper training when drawing up solutions. Can we also map the number of blood banks in Nigeria and what blood type is rare so they can be collected before being scarce since haemorrhage causes about 23% of maternal mortality in Nigeria? Can government also open up data on roads and means of transportation since delay in accessing health care also contributes to death. Can twitter activists also let Nigerians know that people need to hurriedly create way when ambulances are in transit? Can Servicom also become truly pro-people such that complains deposited on their mobile lines are treated promptly? Maybe these would help reduce MMR by almost 75% before 2015.
An example lies in Find-a-Med, a home grown apps helping people find the closest health and medical centres around them in addition to also updating personal health information so that emergency responders can use the information to save one’s life in cases of emergencies. It is wickedness for any government to allow any woman lose her life while trying to give life.
