Kogi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (KSPHCDA) has urged local government administrators in the state to give maximum support to its activities to enhance quality healthcare delivery to the people at the grassroots.
Executive Director of the agency, Dr Abubakar Yakubu who made the call Wednesday at the inauguration of the first round of the 2019 Maternal, Newborn, Child Health Week (MNCHW), held in Government House, Lokoja, said “If the SPHCDA is going to ever operate at optimal level, all hands must be on deck.”
He added that, ”With the recent financial autonomy of the local governments, it has become very necessary for them to support our routine immunisation as well as distribution of vaccines to to reach areas in their communities.”
Dr Yakubu appealed to the local government administrators to key into the activities of the agency, especially Routine Immunization (RI), stressing that the overall success of their activities would be central to local authorities.
Executive Director, KSPHCDA noted that Kogi state had been certified free of Polio virus for 10 years, but cautioned that the detection of wpv1 and cvdpv2 in Nigeria and neighbouring states, underscored the importance of maintaining high level of RI coverage at all levels.
The week-long free healthcare services for women and children in the state was sponsored by ‘Saving One Million Lives Program for Result’.
He commended Governor Yahaya Bello for signing the Primary Health Care Amendment Bill and the State Health Insurance Agency Bill into Law, saying the laws would transform the healthcare delivery in the state.
Yakubu called for prompt operation and implementation of the the laws so that they could yield the desired results.
”The demands for vaccination and other pressing needs cannot wait for unnecessary bureaucracy. The delay in processing some of the requests of the agency is making our work a bit slow,” Abubakar said.
In his remarks, Governor Bello commended the development partners who had been working tirelessly in conjunction with the agency to improve the state’s health indices.
Bello, who was represented by the Speaker, Kogi House of Assembly, Mr Mathew Kolawole, said the main objective of MNCHW was to reduce morbidity and mortality in mothers and children less than five years of age.
