Our Correspondent|2 July 2017
Cross River State Ministry of Health in collaboration with Pathfinder Group, organized a stakeholders meeting to review the pilot phase of operationalizing digital health in select health facilities across the State and this was followed by facility inspection.
The implementation saw an increase in antenatal visits and skilled birth attendant delivery in health facilities and improved mother and child care through consistent Hello Mama Messages (HMM) sent to pregnant women and nursing mothers through a mobile application designed by SMGL/Pathfinder. The contacts of the women were gotten through registration at the facilities and the messages were sent along with contact numbers incase of an emergency.
The HMM are short text messages reminding pregnant women on the need to go for antenatal, the need to plan their births, how to care for their babies, exercises to do, when to visit facilities, encouraging the women to spread the word so that more women will be aware and also provide customized services. This pregnant women are followed through from antenatal stage through to intrapatum, post natal and infancy of the child after delivery.
Dr Asibong lauded the success of the digital health services as she said it would go a long way to lessen the burden of pregnant women especially the first timers in and also consistently reduce maternal mortality in the State. She thanked Pathfinder Group and Merck for Mothers for supporting Cross River State. Following the success of the pilot project the activity will now be scaled up to other health facilities.
Meanwhile the State government through the Ministry of Health has pledged to continually work with partners as they draw closer to the implementation of the Cross River State Health Insurance Scheme. The State Commissioner for Health, Dr Inyang Asibong made this known during the stakeholders meeting as she assured that the scheme will also provide e-health services.
In related news the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Inyang Asibong has presented the State's Human Resource for Health Strategic plan for 2016 to 2020 for implementation. She made the presentation during HRH training workshop organized by the Cross River State Ministry of Health and WHO.
I'm most delighted and honored to present the implementation manual for the Cross River State Human Resource for Health Strategic plan for 2016 to 2020 for implementation after this workshop. It gives me great joy knowing that we are all working in synergy to ensure a better and healthy Cross River State. Thank you all for your support and encouragement, I wish you a successful training and implementation. – Dr Asibong.
The Cross River State Human Resource for Health Strategic plan for 2016 to 2020 will seek to manage the workforce in the state health sector to ensure there are no lapses as the State Government is continually striving to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
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