Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) has lamented the dilapidated structures at some Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in Nasarawa State.
The CSOs gave the commendation at a media roundtable to review the implementation of thier intervention to improve the quality of infrastructure and manpower at PHCs on Thursday in Lafia.
The CSOs are working on the implementation of Nigeria Resilient and Sustainable System for Health Project (RSSH) to ensure better service delivery at PHCs in the state.
The project is a Global Funded Project aimed at strengthening and expanding the capacity of Nigeria’s Health System to combat tuberculosis, malaria and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Speaking at the media roundtable, Mrs Patience Samson, State Programme Officer of RSSH said they were implementing the project in five Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state.
The Programme Officer explained that 15 community based organisations had been engaged and are currently working in the five LGAs of Lafia, Doma, Akwanga, Keffi and Karu respectively.
She said that a lot of challenges were discovered in various PHCs at the five LGAs they are implementing their project.
“Some of the problems includes, lack of beds in delivering rooms, lack doors in some PHCs, parameter fencing, lack of water, inadequate seats, dilapidated structures and inadequate manpower among others in some facilities.
“We have paid advocacy visits to the ministry for Health, Primary Healthcare Development Agency and discussed on issues they needed to address and some were attended to.
“We also engaged stakeholders and communities where such problems were discovered on the need for them to take ownership of the facilities and mobilise resources to tackle some of the challenges.
“And it will interest you to know that through this method, renovation work were carried out and beds, doors, benches, generators, gates were provided to so many facilities.
“The government had also responded by employing some of the casual staff and deploying them to were was lacking, but more are still needed to cover other areas that are still lacking,” the Programme Officer added.
On her part, Mrs Mary Ashingayin, State Coordinator of Malaria Network, said this project is unique because it focused on ensuring community participation toward improving healthcare services delivery in the respective communities.
She added that the programme in the last one year of its implementation had achieved a lot and had put structures in place to ensure sustainability because the community had taken ownership of the project.
Also speaking at the event, Dr. Madawa Abbolum, Director of Community and Family Health Services, Nasarawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency commended the group for complementing the government by intervening to improve healthcare services in the state.
The director explained that quality healthcare delivery is one of the topmost priority of the Gov. Abdullahi Sule-led administration in the state and expressed readiness to partner and group interested in the health need of the citizenry.
He added that there are 147 priority and functional PHCs across the 147 electoral wards in the state that are fully funded with have adequate personal.
He also said that some of the problems identified by the group would be looked into by the agency with a view of addressing them. (NAN).