PROVISION OF EMERGENCY OBSTETRIC CARE IN RIVERS STATE, SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA IMPLICATION FOR MATERNAL AND NEWBORN SURVIVAL

Abstract

The study examined the provision of Emergency of Obstetric Care (EmOC) in Rivers State health service in Nigeria. A cross-sectional research design was adopted and 31 Heads of public health facilities drawn from six Local Government Areas in Rivers State using a multistage sampling procedure participated in the study. The instrument for the study was a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences, Analyzed data were presented using descriptive statistic of frequencies and percentages. The study revealed that provision of EmOC was moderate (54.6%) in sufficiency in theory. In compliance with United Nations recommendation, actual provision of EmOC was low (29.4%) in sufficiency for all nine signal functions. The most provided signal function was signal function-1(54.8%), signal function-2 (51.6%) and signal function-7 (51.6%) which provision were moderately sufficient. Provision of signal function-4 (41.9%) was slightly sufficient, while the provision of signal function-8 (19.4%), signal function-3 (16.3%), signal function-5 (16.3%), signal function-6 (9.7%) and signal function-9 (3.2%) were low in sufficiency. The study concluded that provision of EmOC was too low in sufficiency to reduce maternal and newborn mortality rate in Rivers State. The study recommends that political commitment is a key to ensuring maternal and newborn survival.