Chairman of Ojodu Local Council Development Area, (LCDA), Hon. Olusegun Odumbaku, has expressed his support for the Public Health Centre (PHC) Task Force set up by the Lagos State government to embark on a state-wide vaccination campaign against diseases in the state.
The chairman has also decided to set up a committee in the council to work with the task force to achieve the success of the immunisation exercise within the council area.
Odumbaku’s decision followed the outcome of the task force’s inaugural meeting on Tuesday with the deputy governor of Lagos State, Obafemi Hamzat, and the 57 council chairmen at the deputy governor’s office. Concerns were raised about the need to combat communicable diseases at the grassroots level through child immunisation.
The deputy governor noted that the council chairmen are pivotal to the state government’s objective of preventing diseases such as polio by ensuring the effectiveness of the public health centres in their council areas.
Hamzat further urged the chairmen to take the matter seriously, increase their budgets for health centres in their domain, as they are the closest to the grassroots, and work with the task force.
At the end of the meeting, Odumbaku expressed his support for the task force and said the Ojodu LCDA, under his watch, is ready to collaborate with it to ensure all children within the council area are immunised.
Odumbaku added that his administration would set up a committee to work out the modalities of operation with the task force. He also promised to sensitise parents, school proprietors, and religious leaders to the importance of immunising their children against vaccine-preventable diseases.
“My administration in Ojodu LCDA is in line with this vaccination campaign by the state. We take seriously the health of our children, who are the future generations. To this end, since we came on board, we have renovated and rebuilt four public health centres in Apata, Akiode, Powerline and Gbadamosi areas. While the Oluwole health centres have been equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment, we are working towards equipping others. We have also employed qualified medical personnel.”