Global Fund, ACOMIN Decry Poor Services at Nigeria’s Primary Health Centres

•Say only 20% of facilities offering service

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Global Fund and the Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN) have identified poor services, dilapidated or insufficient infrastructure and inadequate health workers in most of the Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the country as a major hindrance in the effort to reduce the scourge of diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

For its part, the Global Fund noted that from an assessment on the state of PHCs in the country, only 20 per cent of them were functioning and providing healthcare services.

In the latest assessment report on the government’s efforts to promote and achieve improved malaria and overall health outcomes within Nigerian communities, ACOMIN said several factors were hindering effective service provision at the PHCs.

While presenting ACOMIN’s findings at a media parley in Abuja yesterday, its National Coordinator, Ayo Ipinmoye, listed the challenges to include; inadequate supply of malaria commodities, insufficient and dilapidated healthcare infrastructure, inadequate and inequitable distribution of health workers and delayed disbursement of Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF).

He said when funds were not disbursed promptly, healthcare facilities struggled to provide essential services and respond to emerging health needs

“This lack of timely funding has often led to a shortage of medical supplies, lack of funds for ad-hoc staff and limited capacity to address the needs of the health centre,” he said

However, Ipinmoye said addressing these challenges were crucial for the effective delivery of healthcare services, especially in the areas of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV interventions in the country.

He also stressed the need for communities to take charge of their health outcomes and contribute to malaria elimination as well as other preventive diseases.

“The community-led monitoring activities being implemented by ACOMIN has recorded significant successes, however, we have witnessed a number of challenges hindering effective service provision.

“These challenges span from inadequate supply of malaria commodities, insufficient and dilapidated healthcare infrastructure, inadequate and inequitable distribution of health workers and Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) disbursement issues,” he said.

Ipinmoye, further said that another major challenge observed at the community level was the delisting of some PHCs from the globally supported facilities.

He said that those delisted no longer receive free Global Fund malaria commodities due to issues related to record keeping and data entry.

“Despite efforts to resolve these record-keeping and data entry issues, these PHCs have not yet been reinstated into the database of Global Fund supported facilities to resume receiving commodities, resulting in the unavailability of malaria services in these areas,” he added.

According to ACOMIN governments at national, state, and local levels, philanthropists and community leaders need to take decisive action to solve the problem of poor funding to ensure significant progress in eliminating malaria and other diseases.

Also speaking, the Coordinator of Country’s Coordinating Mechanism, Mr. Ibrahim Tajudeen, called for revitalisation and upgrade of the country’s PHCs.

He said PHCs’ services are not where they were supposed to be.

He said an assessment carried out on the state of affairs of the PHCs showed that not up to 20 percent of the PHCs were adequate when it comes to service provision.

According to him, the findings led to the mobilisation of resources to support the revitalisation of the health facilities.

He said that the present administration has responded by releasing some funds through the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund facilities to rehabilitate some selected primary health centres (about 8,800) across the country.

On his part, the National Coordinator, Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, NEPWHAN, Mr. Ibrahim Abdulkadir, said recent efforts by the government are yielding fruits, adding that over two million HIV positive Nigerians are currently accessing treatment.