A Pan-African Nongovernmental Organisation, Connected Development (CODE) is to mobilise communities to support the Kaduna State Government to improve service delivery in health facilities.
CODE Team Lead in the state, Mr Abubakar Mohammed, made this known during a town hall meeting with community members of Unguwan Shanu/Agbakpa, Kaduna metropolis.
Mohammed said that the goal was to involve community members on improving primary healthcare services across the 23 local government areas of the state.
He said that community mobilisation was under the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project (CTAP) to generates information on how COVID-19 funds were being used by governments.
According to him, the information generated from tracking activities are being used to advocate to government and relevant stakeholders for social accountability and change.
“The goal is to improve infrastructural development in health centres, personnel, Water Sanitation and Hygiene, service delivery and COVID-19 vaccines administration, across all health facilities.”
He said that CODE was working to improve public governance in Nigeria and across Africa by empowering marginalised communities to demand high levels of accountability and transparency from the government.
He said that the CSO, through the Community Monitoring Teams, has tracked 24 health facilities in six local government areas of the state to assess the functionalities of the PHCs based on the aforementioned key indicators.
On infrastructure, he said, 17 out of the 24 facilities tracked have electricity supply; only six have ambulances representing 25 per cent, while 13 of the 24 PHCs have detached buildings.
“On vaccine storage, the tracking report shows that 18 of the 24 facilities have a fridge, 19 have temperature logs, and only eight have a cooling van, with a total of 234,065 vaccines administered.
“For service delivery, 92 per cent of the 24 facilities provide antenatal care services, 54 per cent have delivery rooms, 88 per cent maternity rooms, 92 per cent have Ward Development Communities (WDC).
“Also, 96 per cent have laboratories while 88 per cent have an in-patient ward,” he said.
Mohammed also said 38 per cent of the 24 facilities have medical officers, 63 per cent have community health officers, 67 per cent have pharmacy technicians.
He added that only 13 per cent of the 24 facilities have the required number of nurses and midwives, only 29 per cent have health attendants, while none of the facilities have junior community health extension workers.
“On WASH, 83 per cent have separate toilets for male and females, 54 per cent have visible signposts, and 88 per cent have access to water.
“Similarly, 97 per cent of the facilities have colour coded waste bins while 88 per cent have waste collection points and only 50 per cent have incinerators,” he said.
Responding, the Village Head of Unguwan Shanu/Agbakpa, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim thanked CODE for mobilising community members to support the improvement of service delivery in health centres.
Ibrahim pledged the support of the traditional leaders in mobilising the needed resources and advocacies to government agencies to address the gaps in service delivery in the health facilities in the community.
Earlier, the Ward Development Committee Chairman of the community, Mr Garba Mohammed, who equally thanked CODE for the support said that the data would support evidence-based advocacy to relevant stakeholders. NAN
