NAN
The Zamfara Government plans a massive recruitment of health workers for its Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the state, an official has disclosed.
Dr Habibu Yelwa, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health stated this on Friday at a Routine Immunisation Demand Creation meeting in Gusau.
NAN reports that the meeting was organised by the state Primary Healthcare Board in collaboration with UNICEF for traditional rulers and local government health officials in the state.
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According to him, the state government embarked on general renovation and provision of adequate health workers to health facilities across the state as part of its commitments to improve health care delivery in the state.
“As we are all aware that the state government had recently recruited 100 doctors and 340 nurses and midwives in our general hospitals across the state to improve health care delivery at secondary level.
“On primary health care, we are now working to provide one functional PHC in each of the 147 wards across the 14 local government areas.
“We have selected 30 PHCs for the take off project; we have embarked on total renovation of 14 out of the selected 30 as pilot, we will continue with the project until we achieve our target.
“We are also planning massive recruitment of Community Health Officers, Pharmacist Technicians in September this year, so as to equip our PHCs with adequate number of health workers”, he said.
The Permanent Secretary thanked the state Primary Healthcare Board and UNICEF for organising the meeting, which he described as a welcome development.
Yelwa said the meeting apart from reviewing the routine immunisation activities, it would also enhance the level of participation in activities at the grass roots by all stakeholders.
He said the state had been recording effective performance in routine immunisation in previous years – “we won both national and international awards but unfortunately today we are recording low performance.
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“Therefore, it has become necessary to review the situation and identify the factors in order to move forward”.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the state Primary Healthcare Board, Mr Yusuf Mafara, said the meeting was aimed at sensitising traditional rulers on the low performance recorded in the LGAs at the last Oral Polio Vaccine Campaign.
Mafara, who, was represented by the Assistant Cold Officer of the Board, Malam Sani Halliru, said the traditional rulers have greater role to play in improving health care delivery especially at the grassroots.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was attended by the 67 District Heads and local government officials from Anka, Gusau, Kaura-Namoda, Talata-Mafara and Tsafe LGAs