Health
GOV. Peter Mbah of Enugu State, says his administration is in the process of constructing 260 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in all the electoral wards in the state.
The governor said he would also ensure that every local government area got at least one world class secondary health facility.
Mbah stated this on Sunday during an inspection tour of a primary health centre at Ogonogoeji Ndiuno, Akpugo in Nkanu West LGA of the state.
He said his administration was prioritizing healthcare delivery because it understood the import of a healthy population and healthy workforce.
He pledged that his administration would not relent until every child, mother, the elderly and Enugu citizen had access to better healthcare.
According to him, healthcare is at the core of what we do in the state outside education in the social services sector, so that is why healthcare is taking the largest part of state’s 2024 budget.
Mbah said that the administration had undertaken a thorough study of the challenges in the primary healthcare space to have reliable data to craft adequate strategy to address them.
“That is why, as you must have heard from the Commissioner for Health, we are going to be developing 260 world class Type-2 primary healthcare centres across the entire wards in Enugu State.
“Our strategy in that area is that rather than spread ourselves thinly across 557 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), we want to focus on consolidating our resources and developing 260 world class Type-2 PHCs.
“This is because we want to provide 24-hour services in each PHC so that at any time, you would have access to quality primary healthcare in our rural communities across the state,” he stated.
Mbah also explained that the administration was already addressing the state’s poor health workforce density, while equally paying attention to secondary healthcare.
“As part of our strategies, we are upgrading our nursing schools to colleges so that we can have more intakes and have more nurses and community health extension workers trained to man our PHC facilities.
“Part of our strategy is also to deploy technology. We have now started the process of capturing, in an electronic form, all the reports of those that have access to the healthcare system so that we can have an electronic health management system,” Mbah said.
He harped on the need to bring more Enugu citizens under the universal health insurance coverage, saying it was cheaper and more reliable.
“We are also doing something in the universal health coverage. We have to begin to encourage our people to enrol. Just giving N1,000 every month would ensure that your ward has access to primary health care, which comes to N12,000 in a year.
“So, we need to increase awareness in this space for our people to take advantage of it because it does exist.
“We are going to do everything to ensure we continue to improve on our healthcare performance index; and we will not relent until we get to that point where every child, every mother, and every elderly person in this state will have access to primary health care,” he assured.
Meanwhile, the Chief of Field Office, UNICEF, Enugu, Juliet Chiluwe, while commending Mbah administration’s efforts at improving healthcare and nutrition, also pledged continued support of the international agency to the government.
“Your policies on healthcare and nutrition are commendable. We commend you for aspiring to make the state the best in the nation, and we are certain that with your support, we will win the leadership challenge.
“We are also impressed with the 260 proposed PHCs and UNICEF will support you,” she stated.
Speaking earlier, the Executive Secretary, Enugu State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (ESPHCDA), Dr Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku, said the administration was embarking on a massive recruitment of health workers in 2024.
Ani-Osheku disclosed that the state had set up a seven-man committee to assess the performance of LGAs in primary healthcare delivery.
She said the agency had recorded 75 per cent success on the cervical cancer vaccination campaign in October, the disease being the second major cause of death among women.
The executive Secretary said it also trained midwives to manage obstetrics and child delivery in rural areas.
On his part, the state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Emmanuel Obi, assured the women that the new PHCs would reach every rural community, saying the state was doing well in the health sector because of Governor Mbah’s leadership.
“It is amazing that Enugu is already on the map of states doing well both nationally and internationally. Everyone is interested in Enugu because of the governor’s policies programmes in the health sector,” Obi stated. (NAN)
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-December 18, 2023 @ 06:37 GMT|
Tags: Dr Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku Gov. Peter Mbah Juliet Chiluwe UNICEF
