Bauchi Govt, USAID-IHP To Review Health Sector Fact-sheet

Bauchi State government in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development-Integrated Health Programme (USAID-IHP) plan to review and validate the health sector fact-sheet so as to enhance knowledge sharing on the performance of the sector.

At a review workshop held in Azare, Bauchi the permanent secretary, State Ministry of Health, Alhaji Ali Babayo, said the issue of fact-sheet for the state has lingered for long and appreciated the financial and technical support provided by USAID-IHP in the area of health interventions.

He said the renewed strategy will provide reliable and dependable health sector information in a more precise way, and respond to health information scarcity and insufficiency.

Babayo said USAID-IHP had contributed to ensure the state training and retraining of health workers at their places of work under low dose high frequency method.

He stressed that it is a situation where no health worker would miss attending to clients at all the facilities across the state for effective and efficient healthcare service delivery.

“Bauchi State government will continue to prioritise the health sector, that is the reason it has recently employed additional workers in order to fill up gaps on those that had retired from service.

“The state is happy that USAID-IHP has come in to support the development of a fact sheet which will help present data and also help interpret these data,” he said.

Also, the Bauchi State director, USAID-IHP, Dr Alhassan Siaka, said the fact-sheet would enable stakeholders in the health sector to review progress in the implementation of health policies.

“We have realised that the major challenge in the health sector is that of human resources for health, so we are to look at various strategies to be able to bridge the gap,” he said.

In his remarks, the executive chairman, Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (BSPHCDA), Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, appreciated the stakeholders for taking time to critically study the 2022 fact-sheet and come out with reviewed and validated document that would aide effective information management and sharing about the performance and operations of the Bauchi State health sector.

Presenting a paper on the Indicators Trend and Achievements, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer from USAID-IHP, Samson Adeyemi exposed some of the key areas Bauchi State was able to make progress but with epileptic changes at many levels in ANC, PNC, skilled birth delivery and maternal deaths.

He said USAID-IHP has provided interventions in the health sector since 2019 including the introduction of automated appointment reminders to clients, automated job aids calls where health care providers can call toll free and listen to messages on diseases.

Adeyemi added that the hotline complaints’ theme has given clients the opportunities to make complaints on workers’ attitude, available or otherwise of drugs and the health facilities environment.

According to him, “USAID-IHP Bauchi works in 411 primary Health Care Centers, 22 general hospitals, 43 private facilities and with 400 patent medicine vendors.”