Patricia Obiajulu Onianwa is Director of Nursing Services at the University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria. She began her nursing career in 1986 as a staff nurse and midwife focused on improving quality and safety outcomes for patient populations. Over the next 24 years, she rose from direct care nurse to nurse administrator in the Department of Clinical Nursing. Patricia’s leadership focuses on empowering frontline nurses to provide safe, high-quality care at the unit, ward, clinic level and building and sustaining safer health care delivery environments. Patricia received her BSN/B.Sc. Nursing degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and her PhD with a concentration in nursing management from the School of Nursing at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa.
Applied Project Title: Strategies to Alleviate the Shortage of Skilled Birth Attendants-Midwives and Nurses at Primary Health Care Centers in Nigeria
In southwest Nigeria, 36,000 women die every year from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Due to a critical shortage of skilled personnel in the region’s rural health centers, only one in three births is attended by skilled birth attendants-midwives. This applied project focused on ways to increase the number of skilled birth attendants-midwives and nurses at primary health care centers to improve maternal, infant and child morality rates. Strategies include posting midwives and nurses from teaching and state hospitals to rural health centers on a rotational basis to support staffing levels, ensure standards of practice, and improve clinical quality.