By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has assured the Kaduna State Government of its continued support in improving the health outcomes of women and children in the state.
UNICEF’s Chief of Health and HIV/AID in Nigeria, Eduardo Celades, gave the assurance on Friday, when he and his team from both the regional and country’s office paid an assessment visit to health facilities in Kaduna.
According to him, the visit was to enable them assess the situation in the Kaduna health sector with a special interest to see how services are integrated both in immunization, maternal and neonatal health.
“With what we have seen, it’s like there’s a lot of progress on that regards. And from UNICEF, we want to commit that we are going to continue supporting the State moving towards a strong primary healthcare system here in Kaduna.
“Kaduna State is one of our priority state. We have been looking into the indicators and we believe that Kaduna have been doing a alot of progress, and with a little bit of support, we can really make the difference.
“Kaduna is one of our 14 priority states in Nigeria. That is why in Kaduna we have 10 LGAs where we are going to do convergence of investments including solarization of health facilities, support to human resources and we really hope to be working very closely with the government of Kaduna State to improve the health outcome of women and children.” Eduardo, said.
Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health, Adamu Muhammed Mansur, who received the team, thanked UNICEF for the support they have been giving to the state, adding that their contributions has made a lot of impact in the health sector of the State.
Team visited PHC Ugwan Rimi, to assess how Primary Health Under One Roof, services are being integrated, met with the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health and his team, inspected the Integrated Mobile Diagnostic and PHC Service Delivery Outreach Trucks.
Made a site visit to Yusuf Dantsoho Memorial Hospital to inspect Oxygen plant construction and the Newborn care unit upgrade, and also inspected Warehouses housing drugs at the Kaduna State Drugs Supplies Management Agency.
Emphasizing the importance of the Integrated Mobile Diagnostic and PHC Service Delivery Outreach Trucks, Deputy Director, Public Health in the State, Dr. Jeremiah Dakwo, noted that they are meant to provide services in rural areas.
“The mobile trucks are very important to us because they are mostly used in the rural communities. They are used to conduct tests, especially for epidemic bone disease, communicable diseases.
“Other test that these trucks are used for include; tuberculosis test and also COVID-19. We also have x-ray machine inside them which is used to check people for TB.
“We have other sections that are used for Malaria test, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and the rest of them. So these trucks are very important to us and we hope that from this day, they are going to be used in Kaduna state and the populace would benefit from them” He explained.
