Health experts want more funding for Routine Immunisation under PHCUOR
Healthcare practitioners have called on the federsl givernment to prioritize funding of routine immunization, RI under the primary healthcare under one roof policy.
This assertion was made by the president of the National Association of Community Health Practitioners of Nigeria (NACHPN) and PACFaH@Scale, a non-governmental organization during the 24thannual scientific conference holding in Katsina this week
The event was part of NACHPN’s 2018 annual Scientific Conference, which is an annual conference that brings all community health practitioners across the country to discuss the facing the health sector every year.
This year’s conference is focusing on communicable diseases as a challenge to healthcare delivery in Nigeria. The theme of the summit is “Containing the spread of emerging communicable diseases in Nigeria.”
In his speech at the occasion, Dr Emmanuel Abanida, The Senior Technical Advisor to PACFaH@scale, said theconference is aimed togalvanize discussions on why the government should prioritize health funding esoecially routine imminuzation under the PHCUOR policy.
He called for engagement of more health workers with adequate knowledge in the primary healthcare centres in order to improve service delivery across the country.
IDr Abanida added that, it is in order to achieve the desired development in the sector, that PACFaH@Scale is partnering with NACHPN through its (PAS) project to advocate on strengthening advocacies and providing evidence (through researches) in four areas including Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR), Routine Immunisation, Family Planning, and Child Killer Diseases/pneumonia & diarrhea.
While describing PAS as a health accountability reinvestment project that strengthens capacities of indigenous civil society organisations in holding decision makers in all arms of government to deliver on their financial commitments and other service compacts with the people, especially the poor and most vulnerable, Dr Abanda challenged community health practitioners in the country to make themselves relevant through continuous education and training in order to become relevant in the nation’s healthcare delivery system.
In his speech at the occasion, National president of NACNPN, Mr Akor Ekechukwu Jude said the biggest health challenge in the country lies in the remote and rural areas where members of the community health practitioners overlook the service delivery to the people. He added that is it because of the significance of the position of NACHPN that they decided to partner PACFaH@scale in order to improve healthcare service delivery to Nigerians.
He frowns at the decision of the federal government to engage community health influencers and promoters despite having hundreds of thousands of trained community health practitioners that are unemployed across the country.
He described as unfortunate a situation where critical human resources gaps identified across the country could have been resolved if his members are engaged to assist in the growth and development of the healthcare system.He then commended PACFaH@SCALE for the continuous support to the nation’s healthcare delivery systems describing such efforts as unprecedented.Several experts presented papers on ways to improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria
