South Daily
Related Articles
Civil Society in Malaria Control Immunization Nutrition, ACOMIN, Delta state chapter, has urged the local government chairmen of Udu, Isoko South, Warri South, and Okpe Local Government Area Council, to recruit more health workers in Primary Health Care Centre across their local Area as soon the windows for recruitment is open, to address lingering issues of shortage of manpower in Health facilities.
Speaking During an advocacy visit to the chairmen of the four Local Government Area Council, the Delta State Program Officer of ACOMIN, Itua Osasunmhen, highlighted some major setbacks the Primary Health Centres are facing in these Local Government.
At Udu Local Government Area Council, where the advocacy team first visited, while addressing the local government chairman, Ituah Osasunmhen, said “I want to appreciate the leadership of the the Udu Local Government Area Council for their support for this project so far”
“ACOMIN is a Civil Society Organizations,implementing the advocacy and the accountability component of the “Global Fund” Malaria project at Ubogo, Ukpiovwin, Ugbisi, Emadadja, Owhrode, Otor-Udu, and Oghior”
“In the course of our advocacy visits to some of the health facilities in your local government area, we discover some lapses that we want to bring to your notice”
READ ALSO: ACOMIN seeks collaboration with LGA & Traditional rulers to Eliminate Malaria
“At Emadadja Primary Health Care Centre, we discovered damaged plumbing system, and shortage of health workers across the Primary Health Centres in your local government”
“Only a few trained Nurses and Chew are seen at the health post”
“This is not good for the people, on behalf of ACOMIN, we are pleading that you intervene with your good office”
Responding, the chairman of Udu LGA, Jite Brown, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Administration, James Akpe, ascribed the situation to unavailability of funds, promising to swing into action as soon as funds are made available.
“The chairman is willing to resolve the issues raised, but due to paucity of funds he cannot really do much, if not I know his attention is highly focused on primary health care”
“He has taken some measures to curb vandalism and attacks on nurses, matrons and other staff at the health facilities, by providing security.”
“What we lack mostly in this local government area is Junior staff, we would’ve employ but paucity of funds and embargo place on employment for now will not allow us. We can’t even write to Asaba now until they declared vacancy”
The LGA Chairman also raised issues of unavailability of mosquito nets in some part of the local government, saying that the last distribution was wrongly executed, that it couldn’t get to the people of some villages.
“The registration was not carried out in some quarters, and so during distribution they were denied, also there were Complaints from other communities, we could get the complaints of Otor-Udu because the LGA headquarter is here. Some part of the interior villages do not have nets”
“We were told that the people who carried out the registration were not familiar with the Local Government Area. And the painful part of it is that some of the net were returned. We even heard the same report from Ughelli”
Responding to the above, ACOMIN State Advocacy Team promised to bring to the notice of the concerned stakeholders the issues raised above to have it resolved
We have only six Nurses to attend to Seventeen PHC – Isoko South HPM
At the headquarter of Isoko South Local Government Area Council, the Head of Personnel management, (HPM) James Kolo, welcome the advocacy team on behalf of the chairman of the council, Itiako Ikpokpo, who was according to the HPM unavoidably absent.
Speaking during the meeting, the program officer, lament over the report they have about the Primary Health Care at Oleh, Emede, Aviara, Araya, Uzere, Irri, Idheze, and Ivrogbo, urging the Local Government authority to make effort to address shortage of health workers.
“Our aspect as ACOMIN, is to take care of the community and civil society component of the advocacy and accountability in the project.”
“We work with the community at the community level to elicit information from the Primary Health facility where they access services, to see how things are going on there”
“At the moment ACOMIN is working with five Local Government Area in Delta state, and Isoko South happens to be one of the key Local Government that we are having our presence for now. We cover Oleh, Emede, Aviara, Araya, Uzere, Irri, Ivrogbo and Idheze. Thats where our people go to work”
“Our partners have been there working with the community, they have encounter issues, challenges, and they report at the Local Government and some have been resolved, this we are grateful to the Local Government chairman on, we really appreciate that”
“However we noticed that across these PHCs there are shortage of staff, that is no adequate medical personnel. We have some instances where the matron in charge will be attending to many client at a time. There are no trained nurses and matrons”
“In some cases it take two days for a clients to get attended to at the facility, and that discourages people from going to obtain services at the centre”
“At Araya PHC, we noticed that there are no security guards and gardener who takes care of the compound. These are the few issues we have seen at the community level, that we feel that we want to bring before the executive chairman to see how it can be address”
The Isoko South Local Government Council chairman who appreciated the Advocacy team members for their effort so far, described the situation as a helpless one as they lack powers to recruit.
“Some of these problems you mentioned, we are aware of them, very much aware of them, like the shortage of staff, we are aware.”
READ MORE: Malaria Elimination: Delta state ACOMIN tells their story.
“Sometime this year we have to introduce some voluntarily health service team, where we recruit about twenty one Chews, just to assist. We just gave them stipends because we don’t have much money. We did because the shortage was so acute and we started feeling it. In a situation where we have about Seventeen Health Centres with about six nurses to attend to them, is a very terrible situation. In a normal situation we are suppose to two nurses per health centre”
The HPM promised to communicate the minutes of the meeting to the chairman for any possible action.
