The Chief Medical Director of Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital in Kaduna State, Prof Abdulkadir Tabari, has urged pregnant women to utilise the 255 Primary Health Care centres in the 255 wards in the state.

Mr Tabari made the call during an interview on Monday in Kaduna.

He lamented that Nigeria has one of the highest burdens of maternal mortality, where over 400 women per 100,000 live births die annually.

He said that in addressing the issues of mortality rate whether maternal, infant or neonatal ravaging the people, the primary, secondary and tertiary health care levels must be put into cognisance.

Mr Tabari added that the 255 PHCs in the wards in Kaduna were renovated, equipped, upgraded, staffed and put into good working conditions.

He stressed that the PHCs were supposed to be the first point of call for the women in terms of antenatal and delivery.

“All women in the communities are supposed to register for ante-natal and give birth in those facilities, and whenever they see any problem they should go to the secondary facilities which are over 31 in the state.

“Those cases that are difficult in the secondary facilities are the ones that are referred to us at the tertiary level because we have different specialised staff and departments that are ready to take care of the difficult cases,” he said.

The CMD frowned at referrals to the tertiary level from the primary level, while also lamenting that the patients most times even go to the PHCs when issues have complicated and before being referred to the tertiary level, it gets worse and sometimes leads to mortality.

He urged pregnant women to visit PHCs for delivery or get the assistance of the trained midwives attached to the 255 PHCs.

(NAN)