From Ahmed Rufa’i, Dutse
The executive director National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shua’ib has indicated that one of the key focus of the federal government under president Bola Ahmed Tinibu is reducing maternal and under five morality as a result of interventions in the primary healthcare delivery.
The executive director spoke in Dutse, JIgawa state capital when he paid a courtesy call on the governor, Malam Umar Namadi Danmodi at government house during his two days working visit to the state.
Dr Shua’ib explained that “due to interventions in the primary healthcare space number of women who are dying due to pregnancy related causes have reduced significantly”.
According to him “This dedication of the intervention and focus by the federal government is going to be sustained”.
The executive director therefore described inadequate manpower in the primary healthcare facilities as the biggest challenge in the country.
He noted that “The biggest challenge that we have in the primary healthcare in Nigeria is human resources. If we have adequate human resource then we would be able to improve the quality of healthcare delivery, we would be able to get primary healthcare centers where our citizens will be excited about going because they know when they get there they will be treated with respect and dignity and care”.
He told the governor that his team anf himself are in the state to support the Diphtheria outbreak response and also to look at how to provide meaningful guide and support towards strengthening the primary healthcare services as contained in your 12 points agenda.
According to him “Apart from coming to support, we also to acclaimed your leadership even in the last few days you assume as governor of this state, we are already saying that the promises and the possibilities in the primary healthcare are endless, like we came since yesterday evening.
The executive director commended the governor’s efforts on some of the initiatives that they had seen in the primary healthcare space. “Seen how JIgawa state demonseticated and contextualize many inttiatives from the federal government”.
Dr Shua’ib expressed appreciation for the effort the governor is making towards addressing human resource gapĺ
In his response the governor Malam Umar Namadi Danmodi promised that the state government would continue supporting primary healthcare and also ensure that the primary healthcare would be sustained in the state.
Malam Umar Namadi Danmodi explained that “in JIgawa state we consider primary healthcare very, very important in term of our healthcare delivery system. We also recognize that of course human resource for health is very, very critical, because of that we decided to reverse what local government autonomy brought us in the primary healthcare in terms of human resource”.
The governor maintained that “earlier on we have a system in JIgawa state where all the staffs of primary healthcare are under the state’s primary healthcare development agency where the state primary healthcare agency has the responsibility of posting supervising, rewarding or discipline the staffs. But when the local government autonomy came all the staffs of the primary healthcare were returned to the local government councils. That had made it difficult to control them and a lot of politics came in”.
“That is why we revised the system where now we are paying 40 percent of their salary, when the local government paying 60 percent. But all the control has now back to the state government”.
He thanked the executive director and his team for the visit.