By Amaechi Agbo and Onyekachi Agu

On Friday, August 8, at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, College of Medicine, a movement known as Stop Asphyxia Movement (SAM) was launched to the people of Enugu state and Nigerians.

The unveiling programme which took place at the College’s Auditorium, drew actors and players from within and outside the health sector together including the Commissioner for Health in the State, Professor George Ugwu.

In this exclusive interview with ESUT Monitor the Founder of Stop Asphyxia Movement and Provost of the College, Professor Uchnna Ekwochi explained the dream behind the formation of the movement, funding, membership strength, among others. Excerpts

Prof, Congratulations, unveiling SAM has come and gone, how do you feel?

I feel so happy. The launching was a huge success, beyond my expectation.

You know, when you estimated the number and interests, you ended up  getting excess, positive results from what you expected, I think it calls for you to be happy and I am happy.

What Next after the Unveiling?

Well, I said this is a movement, what SAM means is STOP ASPHYXIA MOVEMENT (SAM), It’s not a stagnant thing. We want to build and we are ready to build. Our three mission statements include – one, to create massive  awareness about asphyxia, leveraging on technologies and establishment of an Asphyxia day, to create a massive awareness of this Asphyxia among the people.

Secondly, we will train birth attendance to get them skilled in the art of sustaining the newborn and other essential newborn healthcare strategies that we will need to make our babies survive and see the light.

We are going to promote facility delivery, take steps and initiate strategies that will make sure that our mothers when they are pregnant will go to deliver in the facility and not at home.

These are the three targets, three strategies missions that we have in SAM and we are not stopping a moment, we are hitting the road. We are hitting the road to create massive awareness, to train birth attendance and to initiate steps and strategies that will take our  pregnant mothers to the facility, not to deliver in the house, not to deliver in the church, not to deliver in the Market.

You shouldn’t go to Mama Iyabo to deliver. They talked about it today. That means Mama Iyabo represents an untrained hand, people should not have any business with delivering pregnant woman and this is where our mothers are going to deliver. So we must stop it. Must return our mothers to the facilities to deliver their babies as well.

How is the Movement funded?

That is not a problem. We don’t have problem about funding, but it is lack of the will, not even lack of fund. I don’t see funding as a problem, I see solutions first before I start any mission. Look at the attendance, Look at people.  There is willingness from everybody that was in the unveiling to join SAM.

The Commissioner for Health Enugu State, Professor George Ugwu was here in person, the Executive Secretary of Enugu State Primary Health Development Agency, was here in person and they expressed their willingness to join the Movement. In fact, the commissioner registered as a member before leaving.  I see the other health paracticioners not just Pediatrics, declaring interest, including the psychiatrist, they are all ready to join to stop asphyxia.

So why do you think finance will be a problem? I have just giving birth to what is beyond me and  that was my target. It’s not going to end in ESUT. Not going to end in Enugu state. It is going to go beyond national, to global.

My vision is that I will get to WHO (World Health Organisation) and make an establishment of what is called World Asphyxia Day, a day the whole world will stand  and say, we must stop Asphyxia.

A woman should not deliver where she is not supposed to deliver so that the baby will not get asphyxiated. Until it gets to the global ears, I will not rest.

I will get fulfilled any day I will enter the new born facilities in our home and I don’t see any baby that is asphyxiated, I will go home and take a drink and say I am fulfilled. I may even say I want to retire from Paediatrics because I am fulfilled. My target is to stop Asphyxia at all cost.

If you go there in the billboard now, what you see is 50 percent of admission of asphyxia cases, research found. If you go to UNTH the picture is the same, if you go to Mother of Christ Hospital, any facility that they care of childbirth, the highest mobility and mortality comes from Asphyxia cases. So why can’t we look in and see how we can stop it.

If we are able to control Asphyxia, we have reduced more than 50 % of causes of deaths in our newborn, we must go preventive now. We must find a way to stop them.

What made you to form the movement?

When I became a Doctor and Pediatrician decades ago, I worked in the newborn section and it thrilled me that everyday, I have to battle with asphyxia children, some of them end up not surviving.

Some of them that survived would be having a lot of health complications, prolonged biological sequel such as postural abdomen disorders, hearing deficient, imprecision disorders. An Asphyxiated child will battle so many problems to an extent some of them are just vegetables, and you can’t do anything with them.

They go to school, they are taught but can’t learn. They have got no cognitive and very low IQ. Therefore, I was thrilled, all this while, I have been searching what will be the solution to this. I have written so many papers on Asphyxia, if you Google anything about Asphyxia, you will see my name there. I have published so many papers.

I said okay, what do I do? Must I continue to look at this? When I looked at the causes of Asphyxia, which I also teach students, I discovered that the are largely preventable. So why can’t we stop it?

Let’s not talk about treatment, treatment, fine. But let us get to the root of the cause and see if we can stop it. If we are able to stop it, that will be wonderful. I now started looking deed. Interestingly, many people are not even aware of this. When I now did my inaugural lecture and singled out the three giants that kill the newborn in our environment I saw that asphyxia was the top. We just have to deal with this Asphyxia.

I said if we are going to deal with it then, you must form a movement that will be singing it like the National Anthem, that can be taking steps, because anything you want to do, and you don’t have objective targets, steps and determination, you can’t achieve it.

When there is a willingness to do something, the resources will come. I’m not afraid of resources. I don’t have it. But I know that God can provide it because we are not chasing the wrong cause.

And you can see the government people are already declaring interest. Everyone is interested, just like I said, if you are not affected by asphyxia directly, you are affected indirectly because your baby, your daughter-in-law or your grandchildren could be affected. Your neighbor, church/family member could affected also. So everybody is either affected directly or indirectly, therefore the movement to stop apshyxi is everybody’s business.

The Commissioner made an appeal that you should expand the name to include maternal mortality.

Yes, if you look at our unveiling, just like I said, I have just given birth to something beyond me. We will go back to drawing board. All I want is let us achieve maternal survival. And he has told us as a Paediatrician that baby survival is often times linked to maternal survival and I agreed with him completely.

That we are talking about a baby coming out perfect, the mother must be perfect. We are going to look at it, at administrative level and see how we are going to carry everyone together. I have just given birth to something beyond me, and I accept it.

The psychologist is coming in, the Public Health is coming. We are all welcome, let us join force because the more, the merrier.

What is the membership strength?

Before the unveiling outing we had about 35 members in our role call. But be rest assured that after the unveiling, the ratio and everything will changed.

We can see everybody’s is happy about it, that means we cooked a good soup they want to eat from it, am happy.