By Suleiman Anyalewechi
To bring health care delivery system closer to the people, the Katrina State Governor Dikko Umar Radda, on Monday June 10, 2024, announced that his administration has released funds in excess of N10bn to the 34 Local Councils of the State for the purpose of building health centres.
Three Health Centres are to be constructed in each Local Council,Governor Radda stated.
The Governor who spoke at an interactive session with the press ,noted that the primary objective is to ameliorate the difficulties usually encountered by rural dwellers in accessing health care facilities.
“The aim is to reduce child and maternal mortality rate and other difficulties being faced by rural people whenever they are sick .
Besides,the health centres, he insisted, will go a long way in reducing pressure on hospitals in the urban areas of the state .
“When I came on board, I talked about the World Health Organization’s WHO resolution on the need to have functional primary health care centres in rural areas that can work 24 hours” Governor Radda stated .
According to him the health centres will be adequately equipped with sufficient drugs, medical personnel, regular power and water supply among other necessary facilities.
The Governor assured that there will also be adequate accommodation for all categories of health care workers,as well as other incentives.
When operational the health care centres through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency NPHCDA will be provided with running costs ranging from N250,000 to N400,000 .
Governor Radda however said at present ,there are not enough medical personnel to run all the health centres .
“We have over 5,000 casual staff. And if we are to confirm them, their salaries would double those of the 7000 teachers we recently recruited.
This is because the salary of some health workers is almost triple that of teachers . That is the challenge we are having now,and I hope we will recruit health workers in due course.” he stated
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