Admin|13 May 2016|7:03am
Cross River State is one of the states in Nigeria with functional Primary Healthcare system. A total of 1, 063 public health facilities exist in the state out of which 1, 013 are PHC facilities. It is for these reasons the State and National Primary Health Care Development Agency in conjunction with partners are assessing the performance of the state work plan for PHCs, Primary Health Care Under One Roof and identifying bottlenecks.
According to Dr Ana Onebiene, the 2016 Annual Operational Plan for PHCs was developed to streamline, guide and measure the implementation of PHC activities in the state.
Earlier Speaking, Dr Betta Edu disclosed that integration of PHC services under one authority will include Health education and promotion, Maternal, Child Health and family planning, Immunization, Disease control, Malaria elimination, essential drugs, nutrition and treatment of common ailments.
The DG in her words noted that it was necessary for the agency to do an appraisal of PHC activities in the state, measure outcomes, identify sucesses as well as shortfalls and plan for the next quarter. She was sure that by the end of the assessment the state will improve beyond expectation, expressing optimism about the exercise.
Also speaking, the delegation leader from National Primary Healthcare Development Agency noted the turnaround in primary health system of Cross River State in the past five months. He lauded the DG of Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Betta Edu and His Excellency, Prof. Ben Ayade for the giant stride recorded so far in health sector. He said the creation of the Agency was the right step taken at the right time. He predicted a better rating for CRS this year against last year rating which according to him was poor.
The State Technical Facilitator for EU SIGN, Dr. Ikpeme, noted that the state has achieved unprecedented boost in immunisation services, he pledged further support for immunisation services in the state noting that the commitment of the Governor Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade to health care is sincerely commendable. EU SIGN promised to continue their support to the CRSPHCDA to hold quarterly review meetings as they were convinced that this was a great way of staying focused and correcting errors where found as well as filling gaps.
Resolution from the meeting included fast tracking of one functional PHC per ward, movement of PHC staff to agency, further community engagement, improvement of routine immunisation at hard to reach areas, and better dissemination of important health information to all communities in CRS as well as strengthening of integrated supportive suppervision to all PHCs in CRS and training of Cold Chain Officers for effective management.
Charles Ekanem
Media & Publicity Aide to the DG, CRSPHCDA
