How community effort can transform primary healthcare services –Agbor

From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar

In a bid to strengthen Primary Healthcare Centres in Cross River State, the AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria Network, ATM Network has stressed the need for community effort and ownership in healthcare delivery.

Agbor Solomon, the Tuberculosis Deputy  Coordinator  of the ATM Network in Cross River says community effort is crucial for the sustainability of Primary Healthcare Centres ( PHC) in Cross River State. He disclosed this in Calabar during a media brief to highlight the activities of the network in Cross River State.

According to him, “Community members should be actively involved by advocating and supporting their local PHC’s. “This can manifest through volunteering, donating resources or participating in advocacy efforts to secure increased resources for PHC’s,” he said.

He explained that the government is doing its best to revive these PHC’s but community participation will make this much better. He disclosed that about 1041 PHC’s exist across the state and the government is rehabilitating about 94 of them which makes community participation very imperative .

The Network, he said has been engaging some of these communities through focus group discussion to see  how they can address issues in their respective facilities and how to come up with sustainable solutions.

Presenting the success story of the network, the State Coordinator of the Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunization and Nutrition (ACOMIN), Pastor Effiong Udobong, said they have ensured facility intervention in a number of  PHC’s in the state.

He listed the Akim PHC which lacked an  Out Patient Department (OPD) and the network successfully rallied the  community to reconstruct an abandoned structure  within the PHC for the OPD.

In addition, he said through advocacy efforts community members intervened in clearing overgrown by grasses at PHC Calabar South which made the facility virtually inaccessible, among others.