Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The Taraba Primary Health Care Development Agency has commenced a 3- day orientation/training for her newly recruited ADHOC Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) under the GAVI-HSS programme.
While declaring the training open in Jalingo on Thursday, the Commissioner of Health, Dr. Innocent Vakkai congratulated the recruited ADHOC staff and called on them to consider themselves fortunate for the privilege to serve as Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) under the GAVI-HSS programme.
The commissioner who was represented by the Executive Secretary of the State’s Primary Health Care Development Agency Dr. Aminu Hassan, charged them to be good ambassadors of the Agency and be guided by the standing order of community health practitioners in discharging their responsibilities.
He said the purpose of the training was to orient participants on the activities and programmes of the Agency in order to reposition them for effective and efficient provision of primary health care services across the state.
The Commissioner said that the training was a climax of a process which began three years ago under the watch of the agency in collaboration with Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
He explained that the exercise embarked on a rigorous process of situation analysis, program support rationale, work plan development, reviews among several other things.
“These processes eventually led to the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Taraba State Government led by the deputy Governor Alhaji Haruna Manu and GAVI in February, 2022.
“Taraba State is one out of eight states selected for the GAVI support fund. The support which has been released through UNICEF is geared towards Health System Strengthening (HSS) in the state”, he said.
The Executive Secretary Dr Aminu Hassan in his own separate remarks explained the passion shown by his team and effort put in by government to ensure that a workable primary health system in the state is systematically paying off.
He disclosed that among other success stories recorded was the recruitment and the ongoing training of qualified ADHOC CHEWs who are being reengineered to drive the Health System in the state though the GAVI support fund.
He disclosed that the 250 newly engaged ADHOC Community Health Workers were drawned from across the 16 local government areas of the state.
Dr. Aminu attributed the achievements and success stories of the Agency to the continuous support of Gov. Darius Ishaku.
Our correspondent reports that other organizations such as NPHCDA, WHO, UNICEF and SEDAN who are partnering with the Agency gave goodwill messages and reassured of their continuous support for the state.
