*Commissions health facility in Kosobo
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Executive Secretary of Oyo State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Muideen Babatunde Olatunji has assured that the state government is determined to ensure adequate healthcare service across the state
Dr Olatunji who said this at the Commissioning of an ultra modern healthcare center in Kosobo Community of Oyo town, stressed that the government is committed to doing everything within its powers towards ensuring that the facility serves its purposes in the community.
According to him, in demonstrating this, the state government procures drugs every month and that means the facility will now be listed among those that will be supplied with such drugs.
“The state government primary healthcare was brought in to be able to own it and that is what reflected in my speech. The state will see what we can do to make sure that all the investments on it does not come to ruin. We will seek the community’s support to assist government to make it habitable and functional. The primary healthcare board will provide within the limit what we can, to make it functional and at the end of the day the community will be better for it,” he said.
Dr Olatunji added, “We have a concept of world heath system, whereby we have one facility per ward, but when you have a population that is more than five thousand, you can actually have another facility, the current facility has a population in the excess of the prescribed members, that necessitated this one that is actually coming in handy and it’s in a reasonable distance to the existing one, and we can actually have catchment areas.
“There must be community ownership, they must own the facility, they must not say it belongs to the government. I have asked them to provide security for the facility, they can lay claim to it and be part of the management of the facility. They should not lay back, they should give their support to the facility both financially or otherwise, in any way the facility can be made functional. The community should be able to do that one and we should encourage our staff again to interface with the community as much as possible.”
Dr Olatunji stressed, ” There was a time we had ALGON that were very strong and they met regularly, this health facility is one of their contributions to the development of healthcare service to the nation, and they contributed something like this to certain locations across the country and that was when this one in particular, was conceptualized in 2003/2004.
“This particular project started in 2003, but was abandoned unfortunately due to change of government by subsequent administrations, this is what led to the delay of this project, although we heard information that it has been paid for, but some of the projects were not completed, so the project was an abandoned project for quite some time, I was even here four or three years ago to inspect this same facility which was already been vandalized.”
He maintained, “we want a situation whereby for someone to go the facility and remove hindrances to access adequate healthcare, we want to remove financial burden, this is a facility that some people within the community can actually walk through within five kilometer radius.
“They can walk into the facility and access care without looking for money, transportation or other means, this one will further expand care to the people of the community. It’s quite fundamental and quite commendable that this facility is coming on board to support the existing ones.”
