Oyo State Trains 882 Health Workers on Maternal Nutrition As Training

…As Training Aims to Reduce Malnutrition Among Women, Children in the State

The Oyo State has commenced the training of Eight hundred and Eighty two health workers on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition to enhance the healthcare workers to provide information and services to mothers in ensuring children’s appropriate growth and development through optimal feeding practices.

The programme which was organized by the Nutrition Department of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in collaboration with the Oyo State Ministry of Health, aims to enhance the capacity of health workers to provide optimal Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition.

Speaking on behalf of the Director of Nutrition, Federal Ministry of Health, Mrs. Lamidi Bakare, Nutrition officer, Jibola Babatunde said that the training is one of the ways the Department of Nutrition is contributing to the capacity building of One hundred and twenty thousand health care and frontline workers to enhance the capacity of the healthcare workers.

He noted that the Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition training is all-encompassing which is an upgrade of the old Young Child feeding initiated in 2012.

Mrs Lamidi posited that the Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition manual provided by the federal ministry of health is loaded to enhance the capacity of the healthcare and frontline workers to provide adequate information for nursing mothers.

In her address, Oyo state Commissioner for health, Dr. Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi explained that the essence of the training program is to enhance the capacity of key decision-makers, program officers, and frontline workers to provide optimal maternal, infant, and young child nutrition information to nursing mothers.

She said that the training program is expected to yield significant results in reducing malnutrition among women and children in the state.

Dr Ajetunmobi noted that despite the ongoing efforts by government and relevant stakeholders to reduce childhood malnutrition, the persistent burden of malnutrition among women and children threatens the health and future development in the country.

She charged the healthcare workers to provide accurate information to households, mothers and other care givers on optimal maternal, infant and young child nutrition in ensuring that families are supported and well informed to provide optimal maternal infant and young child nutrition practices.

“Health workers are expected to provide accurate information to households, mothers and other care givers on optimal maternal, infant and young child nutrition; ensuring that families are supported and well informed to provide optimal maternal infant and young child nutrition practices.

“To perform this role effectively, the capacity of health workers must be adequately built.

“The newly updated MIYCN training package is a veritable tool to strengthen the capacity of health workers to deliver quality MIYCN services. A vital next step is to conduct training at State level.

“This is important to ensure that the frontline health workers (who are constantly interfacing with mothers and caregivers) receive this very important training.

“If health workers are adequately trained, they will provide the counselling and support needed to enable mothers and caregivers practice optimal nutrition.

“This will significantly contribute to reduction in malnutrition in all its forms, thus improving our national nutrition indices.

“This training will hold for seven (7) days and will involve variety of training methods, including the use of counselling materials, visual aids, group discussions, case studies, role-play and field trip to health facilities for clinical exercises

“I want to enjoin us to put in our best to ensure that the purpose of this meeting is successfully achieved. I wish you all a fruitful deliberation in this meeting, she said.

In his remarks, The Executive Secretary Oyo state Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Muideen Olatunji represented by Dr Adewole explained that training is imperative to open the understanding of the healthcare workers to pass the information to caregivers and mothers on the importance of feeding.

In her remarks, the Director of Nutrition, Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board and Project Coordinator for Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Dr. Kadijat Alarape, said that the purpose of the program is to reduce malnutrition stressing that the board is building the capacity of relevant stakeholders providing the services at the primary healthcare level in order to pass the right message to nursing mothers.

She noted that nutrition is fundamental that is the backbone of all child development, noting that it usually affects the Gross Development Product of the country if the nutrition is not well taken care of at the grassroots.

Dr Alarape said that it is expected that at the end of the program the participants are equipped with necessary information required to boost the nutritional indices of the country.

Speaking with the some of the healthcare workers, Mrs Aloyinlapa explained that she learned a lot on how to take of babies and nursing mothers.

She expressed gratitude to the federal ministry of health in giving them necessary capacity building on how to pass the nutritional knowledge to caregivers and nursing mothers to reduce malnutrition in the state.

The Program which was supported by the World Bank and Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) aims to enhance the capacity building of health care and frontline workers to reduce malnutrition.