In its resolve to promote effective primary healthcare services delivery, with the aim of reducing to the barest minimum in line with best world practices, Bauchi State Government has released the sum of N320m as counterpart funding in the state.
The disclosure was made by the State Director of USAID funded Integrated Health Program (IHP), Dr Alhassan Siaka while facilitating Media engagement in Healthcare delivery workshop held at the Chartwell Hotel in Misau on Monday, explaining that with such commitment by the state government, the objective of the project will be achieved.
Siaka explained that development partners including USAID, UNICEF, CIDA, Dangote Foundation, Bill and Melinda Foundation and others have pulled together the sum of N5b, which will serve as technical support for the implementation of the program for the 2021/2021 period.
The IHP State Director further said that the aim is to ensure that the primary healthcare delivery service was improved to minimize negative impact at that level of service delivery, stressing that if the primary healthcare coverage is strengthened, the secondary and tertiary will have fewer issues to handle.
On the issue of records keeping at the primary healthcare level, he said that 23,000 health management information tools have been made available to all the 323 PHCs across the state, according to him, without accurate data, it will be difficult to manage issues of improving healthcare service delivery.
He further said that maternal mortality and neonatal morbidity can be effectively managed when there is accuracy in records keeping, assuring that personnel are being trained in order to ensure that data was accurately kept and made available.
Siaka also said that early referrals from the PHCs to the next stage of health service is very important in order to reduce risks of the complication pointing out as it is now, more deaths are recorded at the secondary level due to delays in referrals particularly from hard to reach (HTR) facilities.
He then called on the media to advocate for improved government commitment and policy change as part of efforts in strengthening the health system, as well access and improve the quality of integrated primary health care.
In his opening remarks at the training, the IHP director said that the attention of the public needs to be drawn to those who take decisions in order to address challenges in the health sector.
He further said that there is the need to refocus energy on areas of governance and leadership of the health sector, adding IHP supports six pillars of health systems which includes leadership and governance.
Siaka said that “In IHP, what we are concerned about is how to ensure the health sector benefits from vibrant leadership? How do we ensure that the governance structure around health is improved, in such a way that is productive, efficient and targeted at delivery results that is most beneficial to the poorest of the poor”.
He added that “There is what the media can do to ensure that information around leadership, governance and health sector is made available to the public as well as the decision making population. So that reliable information forms the basis for the decision made by the authorities concerned”.
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