Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have lauded Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State for commencing the process for the employment of 1,500 staff for Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the 13 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state.
The CSOs gave the commendation at a media roundtable to review the implementation of their intervention to improve the quality of infrastructure and manpower at PHCs on Thursday in Lafia.
The CSOs are working on the implementation of the Nigeria Resilient and Sustainable System for Health Project (RSSH) to ensure better service delivery at PHCs in the state.
The project is a Global Funded Project aimed at strengthening and expanding the capacity of Nigeria’s health system to combat tuberculosis, malaria, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Speaking at the media roundtable, the State Programme Officer of RSSH, Mrs Patience Samson, said the project is being implemented by so many CSOs.
She added that the state office of RSSH had engaged 15 Community-Based Organisations that are working in five LGAs of the state.
“One of the major problems we discovered at all of the PHCs was inadequate manpower in addition to lack of access road, lack of beds in delivering rooms, dilapidated structures among others.
“So we table the challenges of manpower to the Ministry of Health and Primary Healthcare Development Agency during our courtesy calls and the government responded.
“All the volunteers at PHCs numbering 1,500 were screened and are waiting for appointment letters.
“The employment is good, but the government should employ additional 3, 500 health workers and deploy them to rural areas given the number of PHCs in the state,” she added.
She added that the project is being implemented in five LGAs of Doma, Lafia, Akwanga, Keffi and Karu, and through their interventions, parameters fences, beds in delivering rooms, gates, and drugs among others were provided to many PHCs.
Also, the Nasarawa State Coordinator of Tuberculosis (TB), Mr Jonna Aboki, said that the RSSH project is aimed at combating tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS.
He added that they are working to strengthen the community to fill in the gap the government could not cover.
He further explained that through their Community-Based Organisations which are working in five LGAs, a lot of people are now availing themselves of TB tests to ascertain their status.
Also, Executive Director, Nasarawa State AIDS Control Agency, Dr Bello Ruth, lauded the interventions by the NGOs to the various LGAs in the state.
She added that the intervention had helped in improving the facilities such as chairs, benches, and beds, and had also facilitated community engagement in the provision of healthcare.
She added that the prevalence of the HIV/AIDS virus in the state has dropped drastically and machinery has been put on the ground to check stigmatisation against infected persons.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNEÂ
and then