At the inception of the present administration of Governor Inuwa Yahaya in Gombe state, the state government made health care a priority as it provided functional primary health centres in all the 114 wards across the state. In addition to that, it established Gombe State Health Contributory Management Agency where about 25, 000 vulnerable citizens have been enrolled to benefit from free health care at primary level.
In this interview with our correspondent NAJIB SANI, the executive secretary of the Gombe State Primary Health Care Development Agency Dr Abdulrahman Shuaibu shed light on the government’s health policies.
Q: Tell us the mandate of the agency
A: Our primary responsibility is to coordinate health care delivery at the primary health care level. That means we coordinate all primary health care facilities, we provide primary health care delivery to the people.
Q: What was the state of primary health care centres in the state before the inception of the present administration?
A: Before the inception of the present administration, primary health care was in a bad shape. There was infrastructural decay, funding was also low. Facilities did not have essential drugs.
Q: What interventions did your administration provide to the health centres?
A: After the inception of the administration of His Excellency Alhaji Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya, a lot has been done at the primary health care level. One, in line with his campaign to revitalize primary health care facilities in each of the 114 political wards, that has already been achieved. We now have primary health care facilities that are fully functional. They provide quality health care delivery services to clients. When he came in, there was this policy of basic health care provision funds according to the national health act of 2014, which is a fund that will be derived from the one per cent consolidated revenue of the federal government. But states are to pay counterpart funds. The basic health care provision fund is mainly meant to fund health care delivery service at primary level.
The state governor immediately keyed into that. He paid a counterpart funds of N100 million naira for the state to be able to access the basic health care provision fund and that has already been achieved. Now all our 114 health care centres across the 114 wards are provided with operational funds quarterly. Through that fund, we have been able to deploy about 153 midwives across 114 wards of the state. We have reactivated our drugs revolving system. The state governor has also paid various counterpart funds with regards to certain interventions like the global fund for malaria intervention, to UNICEF for immunization campaign and nutrition activities.
Q: Are the 114 health facilities newly constructed?
A: The policy of the government at the federal level is to have at least one primary health centre per ward. So it is the existing ones that we upgraded and renovated. Before our inception, some of them were in a very poor state. Some had been vacated, some were closed because their roofs were blown off by windstorm. So they were not functioning. Nobody was there. The staff were not there. Clients were not visiting the facilities. But now I can assure you that each of the wards you go to, you will find a functional primary health centre revitalized and renovated by the state government.
Q: Can you appraise the impacts of primary health centres to common citizens?
A: They have great impacts on the community because, base on a data, because we use data for decision making. We have noticed exponential rise in service utilization by the clients. Our ante natals attendants have gone up. Clients that access immunization have gone up. Even clients that visit hospitals for delivery have increased. It is not unconnected to the fact that the perception of quality of caring at these facilities have increased among our clients because once they see renovated facility, that is what inspires clients to visit these kinds of facilities. So they have had positive impacts.
Q: You earlier stated that government has posted 153 midwives to health centres, what about health workers to attend to patients?
A: Definitely, any where in the world, you cannot say you have enough manpower. Definitely, there is a gap. But I can assure you that the government is working to see how it can close that gap. Health care workers are scarce everywhere. You can come up with an advert, but the number of people that will apply are very minimal. So the state government through the school of nursing and school of health technology is trying as much as it can to improve admission into the schools so that production of manpower will improve. So the issue of human resources will be looked at.
Q: What informed the provision of the midwives at primary health centres?
A: Across sub-saharan Africa, issues of maternal and child mortality is quite high. And one of the ways to address maternal mortality is to ensure that you have skilled attendants at delivery. So, that informed the recruitment of the midwives.
Q: What about availability of drugs at the primary health centres?
A: I told you that we reactivated our drugs revolving funds. And we are also providing operational funds to these facilities for them to be able to procure drugs.
Q: In some health centres you will find out at times that some staff are not at duty posts to attend to patients, what are you doing to instill discipline in the staff?
A: After the inception of the administration of governor Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya, we noticed that a lot of staff are not doing good work. So we conducted stafonauditing and verification to know the exact number of staff we have on ground and those that are in schools or on training. We got the exact number. Biometric machines are installed in those facilities to ensure that staff are always up and doing. I can assure you that we have in five of the local governments biometric machines that monitor the attendance of our staff and it is going to be provided in the remaining six local governments. We have continuously tried to build the capacity of our staff in order for them to understand their roles and responsibilities.
Q: Is there any other thing you have done to revamp the health sector aside the renovation of the health centres?
A: The present administration of Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya accords health care high priority. A lot of reforms are not only happening in primary health care but also at the secondary health care level. You can see how the state specialists hospital was upgraded. We presently have the hospital management board established. Health contributory management agency was also established. This is an agency that was established with the aim of improving access to health care to clients across the state. So far, it has started enrolling beneficiaries into the scheme. And most of the beneficiaries come to access services at our primary health care centres.
Q: Are these beneficiaries civil servants?
A: They are vulnerable people. About 25, 000 vulnerable and poor people that cannot afford care have already been enrolled. And also at the formal sector, civil servants have been enrolled.
