Admin|16 March 2016|5:38am
The Director General of Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Mrs. Betta Edu visited Odukpani LGA yesterday were she held a town hall meeting with stakeholders, opinion leaders, youth, religious leaders and traditional rulers on health service delivery across the local government as part of the State Governor, Prof Ben Ayade's proactive measures in making sure quality primary health care services are provided to the grassroots in the state.
The Chairman of Odukpani, Hon. Bassey Eyo thanked the DG and her health team for coming to Odukpani to fulfil his Excellency, Sen.Prof. Ben Ayade's promise to Odukpani people during his electioneering campaign to provide quality healthcare to not just Odukapani people but across all communities in the state. He drew the attention of the DG to health centres not functioning in the LGA again due to poor handling and lack of commodities. He solicited for adequate intervention by the state government through the agency.
The DG in her remarks hailed the courageous move by Odukpani people as they came out to air their mind about healthcare system in their communities. She said the essence of the town hall meeting, being the first of it's kind in the LGA, is to seek better ways to improve quality healthcare delivery in the state, reminding them that 60-70% of diseases and ailments can be handle by PHC's if the system is functional. She informed them of the second round of National Immunization Plus Days coming up from 19th-22nd March, 2016 assuring them that children within the age group in the LGA will be fully covered during the exercise.
On the new health policies about to be introduced by the state government under the administration of Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade to chart a new course for primary health care system in the state, The DG said the policies are not imposed but rather open for deliberations and adoption by the people. One of the policies is the State Health Insurance Scheme which will also include Community Based Health Insurance Scheme.
The scheme according to her will aid extremely poor persons, under 5 children, pregnant women and elderly persons above 65 years above access Health Care Services free while others will pay a token of 1000 Naira. Part of the policies is mobile PHC's which will take healthcare services to door-steps of everyone.
Finally she intimated the people of her excellency, Dr (Mrs) Linda Ayade's community policing programme of reducing maternal mortality rate in the state and the state government collaboration with Federal Government to make one Primary Health Care centre functional in each political ward.
Many participants pleaded for adequate health workers in facilities, calling on government to employ more health workers to health facilities. They lamented the unavailability of services in the PHC's at night due to minimal workers. According to Chief Bernard Asuquo, a village head in one of the community, he lamented the lack of water in the PHC's as he noted that it is a contributory factor to non patronage of health centres by the people thus giving TBS's an edge in the communities.
The DG promised quick intervention to salvage the situation in PHC's. She called for community participation and ownership.
They following were the resolutions from the meeting.
•to support Community based health insurance scheme.
•to establish one functional heath centre in each political ward.
•to support and sustain mobile primary health care delivery system.
•to participate in community ownership of health facilities.
• to support community policing to reduce martenal mortality.
Several health facilities were inspected by the DG as she noted high rate of deliveries in TBA's instead of health centres. She charged health workers to develop maintenance culture by keeping their facilities clean at all times, urging them to improve their attitudes to patient.
Charles Ekanem
Media & Publicity Aide to the DG, CRSPHCDA
