By Deborah Onyofufeke, Abuja
Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo yesterday, said the solution to Nigeria’s healthcare challenges is availability of Skilled health workers in primary health care facilities across the country.
He added that no matter how much of a masterpiece the architecture of a health facility is, or how sophisticated the equipment are, or even the availability of the commodities, a health care delivery system will not function optimally if there are not enough skilled workers.
The vice president said this, in his keynote address presentedby his representative, The minister of Women Affairs, Dame Paulin Tallen, at the launch of Community-based Health Research Innovative Training and Services Program,CRISP, by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency,NPHCDA, in Abuja.
Osibanjo said the CRISP innovation is a great one as he is assured it will help tackle the challenge of human resource deficiencies being faced by the primary healthcare facilities in the country
“ I think there is no better way to tackle the challenges of health care delivery in Nigeria than to close the gaps on the equitable availability of skilled health workers in our PHC facilities, this can be achieved by a creative measure such as the CRISP this is the Community-based health Research, Innovative Training and Services Programme,”he said.
He noted that there isn’t a single country in the world that can boast of effective health care delivery without adequate and well distributed human resource for health.
He added that although Nigeria makes up only 2 percent of the world population he is aware the country accounts for 14 percent of the world’s maternal death burden.
He also said, Similarly, the country loses 2,500 children under the age of 5 everyday due to largely preventable causes, including the lack of services that skilled birth attendants could provide.
He noted that 80 percent of these death burdens occur in the primary health care and community levels which clearly justifies the need for urgent actions to be taken to implement the CRISP to address this situation.
He gave his word on the FG’s support to the agency to ensure that an improved primary healthcare is achieved in the country.
“I can confidently tell you that President Muhammadu Buhari and I are ever passionate about interventions that would help to improve the health and wellbeing of the Nigerian people, and I have no doubt in the capacity of Dr Faisal and his team working in partnership with the academia and teaching hospital will implement and get the desired result from this initiative.
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” This initiative will not only make skilled health workers from our teaching hospitals and federal medical centres available to offer services in our primary health care centres in all states of the federation but will also be leveraged to ensure capacity transfer to, and mentorship of PHC workers as well as promotion of best practices in community health.
“It is my belief that effective implementation of this initiative will help to fast track the attainment of universal health coverage as well as reduction in preventable maternal and child mortalities in Nigeria.”
Likewise, the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, in his opening remarks, expressed disappointment that Working in primary health care centres have remain unattractive to most skilled workers who prefer to provide services in the urban settings.
He explained that aside from the problems of gross inadequacy and inequitable distribution of our skilled health care workers, the Primary Healthcare Facilities are also facing the problem of their detrition.
He noted that “With this kind of situation, no matter how much you invest in building and equipping a health care facility, if there are no skilled workers to provide the needed services, it is as good as there are no health care services for the people”.
He said President Muhammadu Buhari had taken the issues of making available proper healthcare to the people personal,ensuring that the health, and invariably the wellbeing, of Nigerians remain the priority of his administration.
He added that “It is clear to me that this is the only wealth this administration is concerned about”.
He explained that Nigeria is facing the challenges of gross inadequacy and inequity in the availability of human resource for health, especially skilled birth attendants (Doctors, nurses, midwives, and Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs)) trained on Modified Life Saving Skills across the nation’s primary health care facilities.
He said “To address these challenges, the federal government, in March 2022, on the initiative of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, had a summit on re-imagining PHC in Nigeria during which we presented a 4-point agenda for PHC transformation.
“The first agenda focuses on improving access to service delivery through PHC revitalization. One of the strategic pillars for achieving this is ensuring the adequacy, competency, and distribution of a committed multidisciplinary primary health care workforce supported through effective management, supervision within an enabling environment.
“I am happy to inform you that the CRISP initiative we are launching today is one of our programmatic ways of achieving the first of our interrelated 4-point agenda on PHC transformation in Nigeria. CRISP is a partnership between the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the tertiary teaching hospitals, the Federal Medical Centres, the State Primary Health Care Boards, Local Government Areas and the communities to support PHC development.
” The initiative will leverage our teaching hospitals and federal medical centres in all the states of the federation to pull together skilled health care workers to the primary health care centres in our communities where they will routinely provide services and mentorship, as well as build the capacity of the PHC workers. CRISP has been carefully conceptualized and designed in ways that would be helpful towards the realisation of government’s vision of Universal Health Coverage,”the health minister said.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency,NPHCDA,Dr Faisal Shuaib, gave a detailed presentation as to what CRISP is about, the objectives and how it is designed to work out.
