Bauchi Govt Promises Supply Of COVID-19 Vaccines, Drugs In PHCs

The Bauchi State government, through its Task Force on Primary Health Care, has made a strong commitment to continue to ensure the availability of adequate stock of COVID-19 vaccines, essential medicines, and consumables in the Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities, through an improved supply chain system and Drug Revolving Fund.

The chairman of the Taskforce, who is the deputy governor of the State, Senator Baba Tela, stated this while declaring open the 2022 Annual Primary Healthcare Retreat with the Theme: “Towards addressing Maternal and Child Health Challenges in Bauchi State”, held at Yankari Games Reserve in Bauchi.

Senator Tela said the move was to consolidate on the progress made in some Maternal and Child Health indicators such as utilization of antenatal care and immunization 6services, as indicated by national surveys and routine data.

He mentioned some of the objectives of the retreat to include, among others, to review the performance of the PHC Annual Operational Plan 2022, identify major challenges of maternal and child health in the State and proffer solutions, to devise strategies for optimizing Human Resource for Health as well as to develop effective accountability framework for improved quality of healthcare services.

“I feel highly delighted to participate in the 2022 Primary Health Care End-of-Year Retreat, which is the fourth since assumption in office. This year’s retreat as that of the previous years, is combined with the quarter-four meeting of the State Task Force on Primary Health Care.

“As you are aware, it is a tradition of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Team to conduct a retreat annually to evaluate achievements and challenges recorded during the year. Usually, a theme is framed to address the prevailing health issue.

“Expected outcome at the end of the retreat will enable us to obtain an endorsed Harmonised PHC Annual Operational Plan for 2023, a Roadmap for mitigating maternal and child health challenges developed, an Implementable Human Resource for Health Strategic Plan developed and Robust Accountability Framework developed.

“I want to urge all stakeholders to work closely during this retreat, to device result-oriented strategies to ensure improvement of the overall health indicators of the State. I would like to appreciate the Federal Government of Nigeria through its various Health Agencies, the Aliko Dangote and Bill and Melinda Gate Foundations, and all our developmental partners for the Technical and Financial support accorded to the state,” he said.

The deputy governor used the opportunity to appreciate traditional leaders for their unrelenting efforts in grass-root mobilization and demand generation for health services and urged them to sustain it for more success to be achieved.

Speaking, the Emir of Dass, Alhaji Usman Bilyaminu Othman, on behalf of members of the Bauchi State Emirate Councils Committee on Health (BASECCOH), reaffirmed their readiness to continue to work with various groups especially the health workers at the community level, to ensure that children are vaccinated, while mothers attend Antenatal Care and deliver in the health care facilities.

He recalled that, in recent times, theh state government in collaboration with partners and the traditional institution have introduced a lot of innovations in the areas of community engagement and awareness to improve demand generation for health services and hoped that collective efforts will translate to improved health indices especially that of mothers and children in the state.

“On behalf of the Traditional Institution, I wish to extend our profound appreciation to the Bauchi State Government for the enabling environment, support, and involvement of the traditional institution in governance, more than ever before. To our developmental partners, I wish to express our profound appreciation for the achievements recorded through your collaborations with the government.

“I wish to assure you that the traditional institution will do the needful, in ensuring continues ownership and sustainability of all developmental programmes and projects brought to our communities,” he added.