FG Plans to Increase PHCs From 8,300 to 17,600
The Federal Government announced its collaboration with the state governments and development partners to expand the Primary Healthcare Centre (PHCs), from 8,300 to 17,600 over the next four years.
This initiative will be complemented by the training of 120,000 frontline health workers, expected to be flagged off soon as part of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
The Coordinating Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, disclosed this in his keynote address at the 2-day meeting of the North East Forum of Honourable Commissioners of Health flagged off in Maiduguri.
Pate, who was represented by the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, NPHCDA, Dr Muyi Aina, said the three-pronged strategic approach adopted by the agency includes institutional strengthening and effective coordination of all primary healthcare services (PHC), efficient, equitable, quality, and trustworthy services, and strong collaboration with all stakeholders towards achieving frontline health security and routinely providing basic health care services, among others.
Read Also:
He emphasized the need for collective interventions by federal, state, and development partners to be more people-centred and well-coordinated to achieve overall sustainable goals.
The North East, like much of Nigeria, he regretted, still has unacceptably poor health, which calls for strong collaboration rather than fragmentation of efforts at national and sub-national levels. The Coordinating Minister of Health said, “The Nigerian Health Sector Renewal Investment Programme, which encapsulates our strategic vision for the sector,” was geared towards a cohesive common goal to save lives, reduce both physical and financial pains, and produce health for all Nigerians.
In his remarks, the Executive Governor of Borno State, Prof. Baba Gana Umara Zulum, called on the WHO to fulfil its promises to Bornu State while also prioritising enhanced TB reduction and management, the provision of DNA machines for gender-base violence management, and the construction of hospitals in Biu and Munguno LGAs.
Gana noted that “These promises were not mere expressions of goodwill; that represents the lifelines of our people, mothers delivering children, for victims of unimaginable violence, for entire communities struggling against diseases.”.
