Document Type
Brief
Publication Date
2017
Abstract
There is a shortage of qualified and skilled health professionals providing cost-effective maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) services in Cross River State, Nigeria. Frontline health workers (FLHWs) have the potential to learn new skills as part of a task-shifting and sharing (TSS) policy. This brief highlights the results of the TSS policy in Cross River state: village health workers identify and refer pregnant women in their communities to antenatal clinics and provide oral medications; community health workers perform initial case management and ensure quick referrals to secondary facilities for specialized care; nurses and midwives deliver MNCH interventions that are accessible and affordable to all; only medical officers can repair cervical lacerations, manage pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, and continue management of newborn complications. The brief offers recommendations so that governments can achieve adequate and timely access to high-quality health care through appropriate MNCH interventions, as well as enhancing the abilities of FLHWs to improve MNCH care services through TSS.
Recommended Citation
Adebajo, Sylvia, Ekechi Okereke, and Friday Joseph. 2017. "Enhancing frontline health workers’ abilities to improve MNCH services in Cross River State through task shifting/sharing," brief. Abuja: Population Council.
DOI
10.31899/rh7.1016
Language
English
Project
Enhancing the Ability of Frontline Health Workers to Improve Health in Nigeria
Included in
Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, International Public Health Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons