Reps task FG on rehabilitation, retooling of healthcare centres in states, FCT

The House of Representatives yesterday urged the Federal Ministry of Health to commence the rehabilitation and equipping of primary healthcare centres across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for effective delivery.

The lower legislative chamber also asked the ministry to employ all cadres of healthcare providers for the centres to ensure effective and efficient service. It mandated its Committee on Health Care Services to ensure implementation of the resolutions.

The decision followed the adoption of a motion on “Rehabilitation of Primary Healthcare Centres across the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory for effective HealthCare Service Delivery” moved by Taofeek Ajilesoro (PDP, Osun). He said the House noted that good health was a relative state in which one “is able to function well physically, mentally, socially and spiritually in order to express the full range of one’s unique potentials with the environment in which one is living.”

Ajilesoro said the chamber equally observed that primary health “is the essential healthcare made available to an individual in a community at a cost that he can afford.”

According to him, the “House is concerned that most of the primary healthcare centres across the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja are either uncompleted or in a state of disrepair and in some cases, without equipment to function efficiently and effectively, thus leaving them in deplorable conditions.He went on: “The inability to effectively address the numerous public health challenges has contributed to the persistent and high level of poverty and the weakness of the primary healthcare system

“The political instability, corruption, limited institutional capacity and unstable economy are major factors responsible for the poor development of primary health care in Nigeria.“When people fall sick of minor ailments like malaria or pains, they often go to the tertiary healthcare institution for treatment because the primary healthcare centres are not available and where there is one, they are not equipped with drugs and staff to function effectively.

“Cognisant of the need for improvement in the healthcare service delivery, there is urgency to improve the primary healthcare system by the provision of basic equipment to make those centres function effectively.”