…Praises Anambra in immunization exercise
Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Participants at the workshop/training on the Task Shifting and Task Sharing (TSTS) proposed by South Saharan Social Development (SSDO) funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have expressed worry that only 10 percent of the pregnant women slept under the mosquito treated nets in 2017 in Anambra State.
Coordinator of the workshop Mr. Stanley Ilechukwu, who disclosed this in Awka, on Wednesday, said that Anambra State Health indicators as at 2017 when it was recorded that the state did well in immunisation programmes for children under the age of one including polio vaccination Yellow fever, tuberculosis and measles, among others.
Facilitator of the programme, Mr. Andrew Igbo, said TSTS was aimed at strengthening the health care services in the state hence other health workers, representatives from health institutions and State Ministry of Health, Civil society organizations and pharmacists as well as the media who were in attendance in the need for the state government to adopt TSTS to bridge the gap and short falls of health professionals in health care delivery.
Igbo also said that TSTS was introduced in 2014 by the National Council on Health which was approved by all the Commissioners of Health from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory , decrying government’s inability to make trainees and counterpart fund available for the policy to kick off in earnest.
Also in a remark, the Acting Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health, Dr. Ogochukwu Ndibe said that TSTS is a policy that is result oriented only when those trained, centered their practices on the training received pointing out that there are medical areas that are not to be practiced by non-professionals.
READ ALSO: Killings: Judge hands off suit seeking to label herdsmen ‘terrorists’
He hinted that the state government was making efforts to ensure that the policy is officially domesticated.
The Executive Secretary, Primary Health Care Agency, Dr. Chioma Ezenyimulu and Dr. Obiageli Uchebo explained that there are 35 General Hospitals and 565Health Centers that are fully operational across the state, adding that government, apart from training the students in various health institutions , equally run an on- the- job training for professionals and health tutors.
In her remark, Rev. Sister Raphaelmaria Nnorom of school of Nursing Ihiala pleaded with all those concerned with the policy implementation to accept programme with some level of maturity especially in the rural areas to avoid causing more harms than good.