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From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State government has promised to continue and sustain five years contributions of United States Agency for International Development-Integrated Health Programme (USAID -IHP) in the state health sector.
The State Governor, Dr Nasir Idris who stated this during the close-out ceremony of the USAID-IHP held in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State Capital noted that their actions in the last five years across the 21 LGAs have reduced child and mother’s mortality.
Governor Idris,who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Senator Umar Abubakar said, “the Kebbi State Government under my leadership acknowledged the great contributions of USAID-IHP in achieving its mandate of which the state remains grateful to the US Government and indeed the American people for partnering with us to record the following major achievements in the health sector:
“Facilitating the operationalisation of the Kebbi State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (KECHEMA).Training 7,368 healthcare workers at various levels, including State, Local Government Area (LGA), and Primary Healthcare (PHC) levels, Domestication of 47 health policies, encompassing annual operational plans and private sector engagement strategies, among others.
“Collaborating with “We Care Solar” to deploy and install solar suitcases in labor rooms across 290 primary health centres. Procurement of essential equipment, including infant and adult weighing scales, height measuring boards, stopwatches, thermometers, and manuals for malaria, immunisation, and nutrition, for all 225 primary health centres.
“Provision of some vital equipment to 21 General Hospitals with necessary tools such as pulse oximeters, length, and height measuring boards, service delivery guide manuals, Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) tapes, and weighing scales for infants and adults.
“Supporting the establishment of an External Quality Assurance (EQA) Center and furnishing it with vital laboratory equipment, including microscopes, reagents, slides, and consumables. Establishing Special Care Baby Units (SCBUs) in 12 general hospitals, complete with renovations and procurement of essential equipment”.
Idris who promised to sustain the achievements recorded by the international donor,said his administration would strengthening their remarkable records.
“At this juncture I would like to assure you that my administration is highly committed to sustaining all the remarkable achievements recorded in strengthening the health system in the state during our partnership over the past five years.
“The health sector is one of the priorities of my administration and since the inception of this government a lot has been done to improve the quality of health care delivery services in the state.
“I have given approval for the recruitment of health workers to fill in the gap for human resource for health in the state together with review of renumeration of medical doctors to ensure retention of our health workforce and discourage migration.
“The State Contributory Health Insurance scheme is being strengthened to increase health financing and increase enrolment to decrease out of pocket spending for health care services by our people.
“Substantial investment has been made for the operationalisation of the state Drug Revolving Fund that will be run by the state’s Drug Management Agency to improve availability of quality, affordable and accessible medicines and other medical consumables across all our health facilities.
“Plans have been concluded to upgrade some secondary health facilities across the four Emirates to serve as referral centres for specialised medical care in order to bring these services closer and more accessible to the people.
“All these measures and many more are being executed by my administration to enable the state attain the Universal Health Coverage even before the set target of 2030,” he said.
In her remark via zoom,IHP Chief of Party and Palladium Headquarters Corporate Representative,,Dr. Marta Levitt who enumerated some of the achievements recorded by the international agency noted that the organisation will be looking forward to see improvement of the state in the report of national health survey to be conducted during the year.
She also urged the state to improved on the budget allocation to the health sector, procurement of medical equipments to the hospital to prevent death of children and mothers across the Communities.
Earlier,the state coordinator of USAID-IHP, Dr. Tijani Suleiman, commended the state government for provided conducive environment for the agency to operate in the state and succeeded.
