Health sector involvement only way to achieve civil, vital statistics system — NPC

Involvement of the nation’s health sector has been described as the only way through which a robust and comprehensive civil registration and vital statistics system can be achieved.

This is according to the Director, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, NPC headquarters, Abuja, Mathew Temidayo Sunday while speaking with Journalists during a 3 day Operational Plans for Birth Registration, 2023 Orientation and Planning Meeting for massive scale-up in Bauchi State held at the Jamil Hotel, Bauchi.

Meanwhile, this is coming on the heels of a current trend in the slow progress of birth registration across the country which has made the National Population Commission (NPC) to integrate the exercise into the health sector in order to achieve the set objectives. 

He said, “Yes, the primary essence of coming to Bauchi is to do the macro planning and share what we intend doing with our key partners in Bauchi state, and, who are these our key partners, why are they our key partners?

“We are talking here about birth registration and we have found out where we want to be, concerning our coverage. We are not there yet. We have selected for the first phase; 22 states that actually need more support to enhance their coverage. That is what we are doing here, developing the macro plan and sharing our experiences on the ones we have done before and what we need to do anew to make us move forward.” 

Asked on the timing for the exercise, he said, “Yes, the unbundling of equipment, unbundling of participants is taking place on 19 and 20 of May, after then, for 15 days, the birth registration exercise will be done in all the 20 LGAs in Bauchi state as well as all the political wards. But, what we did in order not to make the whole thing look clumsy, we have divided the LGAs into 2 phases, so, we are working in two phases of 15 days each.” 

“We cannot do it alone, in order to make it more effective, we are going to recruit staff. It will be based at the ward levels so that the registrars we will be using on the field are people known around living within the wards and they are trusted. That makes it easy for them to elicit information from the communities,” he stressed. 

Mathew Temidayo added that “apart from that, it will solve a lot of logistics problems, we don’t need much transportation, accommodation, because they are already within the people, and they speak the same language with the people.” 

“We have developed an App which will be made known to the public, everybody will have a fair level playing ground, nobody will be spoken to because we are not doing any human interview, it is the App, you will simply submit your information and the App will pick it up from that point, it is the App that is going to do the selections. Everybody has a fair chance.”

He stressed that,”Yes, for any country to have a robust and comprehensive civil registration and vital statistics system, the health sector must be adequately involved, NPC cannot do it without the health sector. So, NPC and the Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (BASPHCDA) are working together, not just concerning this exercise, we have been working together for a very long time.”

He stressed that, “If you were at the opening ceremony yesterday, the Executive Governor of Bauchi State was adequately represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of health, you cannot barb somebody’s head in his absence, Bauchi State government is the Chief Host of every activity here.”

The Director added that, “There’s no way we can do without them and we are not just limiting it to Bauchi state government and the BASPHCDA, this time around we have found out that we have a strategic, reliable ally in the NYSC, so, we are getting the Corps involved, we are also getting ALGON involved, that is the reason you can see all the 20 LGA Chairmen here and with your presence too, you can know that media is the Vanguard of spreading the message for us.”

On the trend across the country, Mathew Temidayo said that, “Yes, we selected 22 states that need immediate support, those are the states that are below 40 percent because the National coverage is 57 percent but Bauchi here is 38.3 percent, it is even below that, so, if we continue to give equal attention to everyone, some will be raising it while others will be bringing it down.”

According to him, “it’s not as if those that are performing well will not be given attention, no, but we will give more attention to these 22 states, the situation is just like you have 2 children in school, one is brilliant, the other one is not, you will definitely give more attention to the slow one in order to bring him up and ensure that you are speaking in the same language.” 

“Yes, like I said, there is no way we can achieve the set objectives without the health sector, prior to this time, we have been collaborating with the health sector but now, we think collaborating is not enough for us, so, we are moving a step forward, we are integrating birth registration into the health sector,” he added.

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