The Founder of Vickyheldan Empowerment Foundation, Dr Victory Njoku, has called for stronger implementation of policies on women’s health to reduce maternal deaths and improve access to healthcare across Nigeria.
Njoku made the call in an interview on Tuesday in Abuja, stressing that although Nigeria had several policies on women’s health, more effort was needed to translate them into action.
She said more intentional and systemic measures were required to address gaps in maternal healthcare and ensure women received the care they needed.
“What it is, is that we’re not making systemic efforts to see how we can be more intentional about women’s health because it’s not just making policies.
“We have a lot of policies in place, but we are not executing. Execution action plan is the way forward,” she said.
Njoku also called for greater community engagement to improve access to healthcare interventions, particularly for women in rural communities.
She said communities should be actively involved in designing and delivering healthcare interventions because they understood their populations and specific challenges.
“We should see how we can create a partnership between the community itself because the communities, they know themselves. They understand their numbers, they understand their challenges.
“So, you should engage the communities. Community engagement is key,” she said.
The founder also stressed the need for stronger collaboration among government, non-governmental organisations and other agencies to address the country’s healthcare challenges.
She said government could not tackle the challenges alone and needed to work with organisations that had the expertise and resources to implement interventions at the community level.
“That is why they need to collaborate with NGOs and agencies,” she said.
Njoku said such partnerships, supported by adequate funding, would strengthen organisations’ capacity to implement healthcare programmes and extend interventions to underserved communities.
She reaffirmed Vickyheldan Empowerment Foundation’s commitment to promoting women’s health and empowerment through partnerships and community-focused interventions.
