By Ngozi Onyeachonam

The relentless efforts of the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano to ensure that Anambra indigenes, whether rich or poor, have access to quality healthcare have yielded impressive results with the recent passing into law of the Anambra Universal Health Insurance Bill by the Anambra State House of Assembly.

The passing of the bill is a major achievement of the Obiano administration which has made several bold efforts to push for lasting reforms in the healthcare delivery sector in the state.

The administration has also earmarked the sum of N200m to ensure immediate activation and full implementation of the health insurance scheme and demonstrate its resolve to provide easy access to quality healthcare for all. To strengthen this resolve, the administration has also designated the 10 million Euros grant to the state from the European Union to boost the implementation of the scheme. This revelation is part of Governor Obiano’s Report Card to the people of the state to mark his third year in office.

It has to be noted however, that Governor Obiano’s strategic approach to healthcare delivery is structured into three broad areas – Primary Healthcare, Secondary Healthcare and Tertiary Healthcare. This categorisation makes it easier to place a finger on a specific area and direct a concentrated attention to it with a view to greater efficiency. As a result of this, a major achievement of the Governor in Primary Healthcare is the establishment of the Anambra State Primary Healthcare Development Agency. This agency might well be the turning point for a more robust healthcare system in the state. Before the agency was established, the primary healthcare centres in the state were managed by various local governments without clearly defined roles and or objectives. But the agency came into existence with the mandate to restructure, coordinate and manage healthcare activities in the state under one umbrella. The immediate target of the agency is to provide one functional primary healthcare centre per ward. Already, the agency has hit the ground running with the provision of 7 Water-ambulances to ensure that the riverine communities have a wider access to quality healthcare. It has also gone ahead to provide 72 Direct Drive Solar Refrigerators that would help in preserving vaccines in the rural areas. Similarly, 30 new primary healthcare centres have been constructed and 100 old ones renovated.

A similar achievement was recorded in the Secondary Healthcare Sector where the renovation Onitsha General Hospital is almost 70 per cent completed with a Helipad for air ambulances. The same process is underway at the General Hospital Ekwulobia and the one in Enugwu-Ukwu. The dominant idea in the Secondary Healthcare Sector is to upgrade the big three general hospitals to Specialist Hospitals.

Similarly, the Obiano administration devotes the same level of attention to Tertiary Healthcare and has embarked on extensive infrastructural upgrade of Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Awka. In a rare display of his resolve to turn things around in the teaching hospital, Governor Obiano had worked assiduously to secure accreditation from the West African College of Surgeons and the National Postgraduate Medical College for residency programmes in Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Paediatrics and Community Medicine for the Teaching Hospital. Not only that, he also offered the first set of medical doctors from the school automatic employment after they had struggled for ten years for a medical degree. The School of Nursing in Nkpor and the School of Health Technology, Obosi have all been fully accredited too.

Also, in continuation of the efforts of the previous administration to turn Mission Hospitals into centres of excellence, the Obiano administration has donated the sum of N448m to Mission Hospitals in the state. The overall objective of the administration in the health sector is to achieve a comprehensive reform that will place the state ahead of its peers in healthcare delivery in the country.

•Dr Mrs Onyeachonam writes from the Ministry Health, Awka