FG pledges support for primary healthcare in Southeast

The Federal Government has stated its desire to transform primary healthcare across the southeast region, just as it frowned at the condition of the primary healthcare zonal cold store in Enugu state.

Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA), Dr Muyi Aina, who stated this at the weekend after a tour of the zonal cold store, stressed that there was an urgent need to rehabilitate the facility to enable it to serve optimally the interest of the people.

Aina, who was accompanied by senior officials of the agency, expressed displeasure that some parts of the facility were not functional.

Also speaking during a visit to Governor Peter Mbah at the Government House, Enugu, Aina commended the transformation of primary healthcare in Enugu State by the Governor Peter Mbah administration, saying the state was well ahead in repositioning that layer of the healthcare system.

“Enugu people are happy with you. The Federal Government is happy with you too for a number of reasons. When we came up, we said we want to revitalise our primary healthcare centres across the country.

“You got ahead of us. The news we are getting is extremely encouraging and that is one of the reasons why this is the first stop. This is my first visit to any state.

“You have gone ahead of us to commence the construction of 260 new health facilities. That is no mean feat. You have not just talked about it, you have actually completed some. You have awarded contracts for all. It is indeed a great honour and privilege to be here today given all of these strides.

“Beyond what I have just said, you have also focused on health workers, which is another big thing. You know that there is a shortage of health workers in the health sector broadly, but also in the primary healthcare system specifically. You are recruiting health workers of different cadres. You should be congratulated for this.

“We are also aware and we want to thank you because you are one governor, who is prompt to his counterpart-funding responsibility when there is funding needed for health activities and for health campaigns. I have never had to call you to plead to release funding,” he stated.

Dr. Aina said given the strides, the FG was going to support the state with N254m to help revitialise existing facilities to complement the new ones being constructed by the Governor Mbah Administration.

“Encouraged by all of these strides you are making, I would like to also tell you that Enugu State will benefit from the ongoing revitalisation of PHCs. We have completed the assessment of 253 facilities here and from what we found, there are quite a bit of gaps and we also stepped up.

“About 162 of them have the number of skilled birth attendants that you need to fully operate. Also, some of them need staff accommodation. We are going to support you.

“The sum of N254million has already been earmarked as part of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund that you will use to revitalise some of these facilities. We have over twenty that we will also be revitalising for the state to support your efforts.”

He added that the agency was ready to collaborate with the state in the area of training of manpower and replacement of obsolete cold chain infrastructure, among others.

Governor Mbah while welcoming the support, noted that the government’s effort to reposition the healthcare system was in sync with his administration’s priorities.

The governor said the government was recruiting 2,200 health workers to address the deficits in the healthcare space in the state.

“Even though what you may notice is our recruitment of 450 health workers, but the approval is actually 2,200. We did the analysis and the data we saw on pregnant women who have no access to healthcare personnel at delivery was scary. We knew we needed to ramp up very quickly,” he said.