Anambra State Government is to establish a health facility monitoring accreditation agency to eliminate quackery in the state.
The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Afam Ben Obidike disclosed this when Anambra state House of Assembly Committee on Health paid a familiarisation visit to the Ministry of Health at the Jerome Udorji, Secretariat in Awka, on Tuesday.
Obidike informed the committee that the Agency will be established before the end of this year 2023 and it will clamp down on any illegal hospital found operating in Anambra State.
According to the Commissioner, “the agency will amongst others set the required standards for the operations of public and private health facilities as well as accredit, inspect and license all health facilities.”
He further said that the establishment of the agency will enable the public to know well-registered hospitals and desist from patronizing quacks, even as he urged the Anambra State House of Assembly to assist the Ministry to achieve it by giving it legal backing.
He said that the Ministry is making efforts to have a quality laboratory assurance unit with the aim of ensuring that drugs being supplied to the state are of good quality and healthy for consumption and commended the House for the role they played during the recruitment of over three hundred health workers into public hospitals across the state.
Obidike stressed the need for the House Committee on Health to work for the enactment of a Health Insurance Law that will give retirees access to quality healthcare whenever the need arises.
Earlier, the Chairman of Anambra State House of Assembly Committee on Health, Honourable Tony Muobuike while commending the health reforms programme of Governor Chukwuma Soludo expressed the commitment of the Committee to partner with the Ministry in actualizing its development goals for the benefit of Anambra residents.
Muobuike disclosed that the essence of their visit to the Ministry is to ascertain their challenges so that they could offer solutions to them.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then