Lara Adejoro
The Federal Capital Territory Administration has canvassed for partnership to improve and broaden the Primary Healthcare Centres for residents in the FCT.
The Mandate Secretary for Health Services and Environment Secretariat of the FCTA, Dr Adedolapo Fasawe highlighted the need for partnerships with both local and international development organisations during the United States Agency for International Development Integrated Health Programme dissemination and close-out ceremony held on Tuesday in Abuja.
She stressed the importance of collaborations to bolster the expansion, infrastructure, logistics, and personnel of the Territory’s healthcare system.
Fasawe described the USAID IHP as a model for such partnership-driven initiatives.
The Mandate Secretary said, “Well, the truth is, we have over 300 PHCs in the FCT, for a population of about 4.3 million. It is not that surprising that some of the PHCs are not manned. There is a shortage of human resources in health, globally.
“So what we have tried to do is, with this administration, we are transferring skills and training community health workers to man those PHCs. We do have a lot of infrastructure in the FCT. However, it’s unfortunate that we do not have enough human resources to man those places. But with this kind of project and programs by USAID IHP, we have been supported to train community people to give out the basics.
“And in terms of drugs, we are strengthening our drug-revolving system. We will make sure that at no point in time would you go to a PHC and they will tell you there are no drugs in stock. As we talk currently, we have drugs in almost all the PHCs that people access.
“At times we put medication there, we put people there, and they expire. So also we kind of look at health-seeking habits, we look at the topography before sharing our scarce human resource to man those places.”
Fasawe underscored the importance of other development partners mirroring the USAID IHP’s approach.
She added, “The truth is, the programme talks about improving, which is a continuous thing. We haven’t gotten it right quite yet. If I had my way, I would ask this program to stay and continue to work with us hand-in-hand to improve and make our health indices in FCT one of the best in the country.
“What we have gotten with IHP over the past four years is they have been able to help us strengthen the system. For example, explaining to us, healthcare seekers and healthcare givers the importance of two-way referral. Now, due to this intervention, we have been able to almost perfect our referral system.
“When you go to the primary healthcare centre, you are documented electronically and you can be referred. We have about 60 sets of close user group telephones that were donated to us through this project.
“Now, our two-way referral system is very smooth. Before a patient is taken from one spot to the other, somebody is expecting her or him at the other end. And also regarding maternal mortality, which is something that we have zero tolerance for in this administration. No woman, no woman at all, should die of childbirth complications.
“USAID-IHP and this project have helped us very much to look at low-hanging fruits, how can we reduce maternal mortality, through education, and advocacy, by sensitizing, and finally, the FCT has made health insurance free for pregnant women that reside here.
“Not only indigent but reside within the FCT. Come to our nearest health facility, if you are pregnant, and register for health insurance. And your delivery and that baby for the first year of its life will be taken care of, free of charge”.
The USAID IHP FCT State Director, Dr Frances Adewumi, while speaking, noted that the winding down programme encompassed interventions in 162 PHCs, which covered areas such as data management, finance management, monitoring and evaluation, logistics, infrastructure provision, and training.
He highlighted the importance of mapping out a strategy to sustain and replicate the USAID-IHP interventions in other health facilities within the Territory that did not benefit from the programme.
Meanwhile, the managers and health workers in the health facilities that benefited from the IHP expressed gratitude and conveyed their intention to utilize the knowledge acquired during the five-year programme to ensure the continuity of the interventions.
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