Save the Children, an international NGO, said on Friday that it would train 5,000 health care workers in Kaduna, Lagos and Gombe states to improve the quality of health care delivery. The NGO’s Coordinator in Kaduna State, Hajiya Aisha Abubakar, made this known in Kaduna during the inaugural meeting of the project tagged; “Improving Health Workers Capacity in Nigeria”. Abubakar explained that out of the figure, 1,900 beneficiaries would be selected from Lagos while 1,550 each would benefit in Kaduna and Gombe states. According to her, the aim is to improve access to life saving health care by building capacity of frontline health workers to deliver quality services to address infant and child mortality. She said that the training would be conducted with funds from Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK), with focus on improving the skills of health care workers in areas with highest skilled gaps.

“Save the children, an international NGO with presence in Nigeria since 2001, has recently access funds from Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) to support the government of Kaduna, Lagos and Gombe states. “The GSK-funded training was designed to contribute towards an overall goal of improving the quality of health service and reducing maternal newborn and child mortality in the benefiting states. “The project, a three-year grant, was aimed to collaboratively build the capacity of health workers and support the presence of an enabling environment for health workforce development,” she said. The coordinator said that available records indicated that Kaduna state with a population of over seven million people had a density of 10.9 doctors, 29.3 nurses and midwives per 100,000 people. “As in Lagos and Gombe, the distribution of the health workforce in Kaduna is heavily weighted in favour of urban areas and tertiary facilities.