To improve healthcare delivery and bring the sector's services closer to the people, the Enugu State government has embarked on the construction of new 260-type 2 primary healthcare centres across the state.
Governor Peter Mbah disclosed this yesterday when he received the minister of state for health and social welfare, Dr Tunji Alausa, at the Government House, Enugu.
Mbah said the state government had taken significant steps at improving the healthcare sector, which would ensure increased access to quality healthcare facilities by residents across the state regardless of financial status.
The governor, who said innovative measures were being taken by his administration to transform the healthcare sector, expressed delight over the federal government's interest in the efforts of the sub-nationals to build a robust and resilient system.
He said, "I am glad that this present federal government is recognising the roles the states play to achieve their health indicators, those targets that we have, whether it's maternal or infant mortality rate, it won't happen from top-to-bottom, it's going to happen from bottom-to-top.
"We are doing some aggressive things also in collaboration with the federal government. We are currently constructing brand new 260-type 2 primary healthcare centres in the 260 wards of the state.
"Just like yourself, when we came in, we recognised that we couldn't craft an excellent strategy. We were not able to obtain enough data, so, we immediately sent forth and gathered data to enable us to plan and be able to tackle, and identify the gaps we have across different strata of our healthcare system, whether in the primary, secondary, or tertiary healthcare system," Mbah added.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
According to him, the administration had already identified deficits in infrastructure, shortage of personnel or workforce, among other factors, as the major challenges facing productivity in the health sector in the state, saying the government was stepping up efforts to use technology and has already designed developmental template to address the problems and make the system not only attractive but also effective, efficient and functional.
Earlier, the minister had told the governor that he was in Enugu to witness the graduation of students of Federal School of Dental Technology, Enugu, disclosing that the institution is in affiliation with the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, and now a degree-awarding institution. "Today, they have over 2,000 students in that school. They will be graduating about 300 students on Thursday. Besides that, they had built a lot of capacity. It's actually the model we are using for all other institutions of ours. We did a lot of diagnosis to know what needed to be done."
He assured that despite the difficulty in the healthcare sector, the President had concluded plans to revamp the sector.
"To me, it is difficult, but he did that in Lagos when he was a governor. That's what he wants to do at the federal level, to revitalise the health system in the country," he said.
