Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The Nigerian State Health Investment Project (NSHIP), in collaboration with the Taraba State Primary Health Care Development Agency (TSPHCDA), has scaled up provision of quality health delivery to Taraba communities at a relatively cheaper rate to tackle mother and child-related health challenges in the state.
Executive Secretary of TSPHCDA, Mr. Aminu Hassan Jauro, disclosed this at a joint press briefing, in Jalingo, where he gave a rundown of the successes of the program in the last one year and the expansion plans for the year in view.
Jauro said that the primary concern of the agency was concerned with ensuring that “maternal mortality is reduced to the barest minimum”.
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“This project was extended to the North East to mitigate the effects of overstretched health facilities in the region due to insurgency. The project to will last for three years at
$2.4m. You know that Primary Health care delivery takes care of over 70 per cent of the Nigerian population”, he said.
Earlier, the project coordinator of NSHIP, Dr. Ezekiel Ubanu disclosed that the project have been upscaled to cover Takum and Jalingo local government areas, in addition to Ardo Kola and while there are plans to cover Sardauna, Gassol and Wukari by October this year.
Ubanu said that the number of normal deliveries have risen by over 60 per cent while number of expecting mothers assessing antenatal at the designated hospital in the area have also risen drastically.
He said that this success story was due to the high quality of the services and the nearly free cost of accessing the services, thereby encouraging the very low income earners to also go for the services.
“So far, we have recorded tremendous progress in areas of mother and child health care delivery. More than 70 per cent more women now have access to almost free medical care in the areas of coverage. We have also recorded a lot of progress in terms of renovations and equipment of medical facilities across the area of coverage.
He urged the media to assist and spread the word to the people about the services of NSHIP as “people have limited knowledge of their rights and opportunities and so it is important to reach out to them through the media so that they can access the services and to tell them the story of how well we have done so far.
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“The programme is performance based as we give facility targets and unless this target is reached based on recommended quality, you stand to get nothing out of us.”
The project is aimed to increase the delivery and use of high impact maternal and child health care intervention and improve quality of care available to the people in Taraba State.