By Adadareporters
A number of 260 brand new type – 2 primary healthcare centres are being built across Enugu State.
Gov Peter Mbah stated this when he received in audience the minister of state for health and social welfare, Dr Tunji Alausa, at the Government House, Enugu, on Thursday.
According to him, the state government had taken significant steps at improving the healthcare sector to ensure increased access to quality healthcare facilities by residents across the state regardless of their financial status.
Governor Mbah expressed delight over the federal government’s interest in efforts of the sub-nationals to build a robust and resilient system.
According to him, “I am glad that this present federal government is recognising the roles the states play to achieve their health indicators, those targets that we have, whether it’s maternal or infant mortality rate, it won’t happen from top-to-bottom, it’s going to happen from bottom-to-top.
“We are doing some aggressive things also in collaboration with the federal government. We are currently constructing brand new 260-type 2 primary healthcare centres in the 260 wards of the state.
“When we came in, we recognised that we couldn’t craft an excellent strategy. We were not able to obtain enough data, so, we immediately sent forth and gathered data to enable us to plan and be able to tackle, and identify the gaps we have across different strata of our healthcare system, whether in the primary, secondary, or tertiary healthcare system.”
He said his administration had already identified deficits in infrastructure, shortage of personnel, among other factors, as the major challenges facing productivity in the health sector in the state, saying the government was stepping up efforts to use technology and its already designed developmental template to address the problems and make the system not only attractive but also effective, efficient and functional.
“We have also a robust developmental plan to address the issues of fees,” he said. “As we are dealing with the infrastructural deficits that we have identified, we also know that we have the same deficits in manpower. We were already handling some tension with resident doctors who were also concerned that the lack of manpower was also affecting their productivity, and something needed to be done in that regard.
“We are also glad that technology has a role to play. We welcome also with delight the news about how we can grow the number of manpower we are producing, at least double the manpower we are producing in the country. That is indeed, heartwarming.”
The minister said the Tinubu administration was addressing the challenges of migration by health workers with the right academic environment and better welfare package.
According to him, “Whatever you think we can do for you as a state at the national level, it’s also part of out agenda; better collaboration, better coordination of resources.”
