How primary health centre alleviates our sufferings - Gui residents
Primary health care is the first level of care and very important in making quality health care services available and accessible to the people. Communities in the rural areas where there are no Primary Health Care (PHC) centres are subjected to untold hardships and preventable deaths and diseases.
The people are forced to travel far, go to other places and levels of care thereby choking institutions providing secondary and tertiary care in the country.
For people of Gui village, in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), it was a dream come true when the European Union Support to Immunization Governance in Nigeria (EUSIGN) provided them a PHC centre recently.
The EU-SIGN is a seven-year project funded by the European Union from 2011-2018 as part of developmental strides of the union to the Nigerian government through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning which will facilitate government efforts in reducing the burden of preventable diseases, eradicating polio and strengthening access to the primary health care system.
A resident of the village, Abigail Lurther, said before the donation, emergency cases of child birth or severe health cases had to be taken to Sauka, Airport Road, adding that because of the distance, sometimes people died before getting to the hospital.
She said the upgraded and commissioned health facility, would provide succour for them.
She appealed for the deployment of health care personnel and drugs to the hospital.
“Some of the doctors come at 8:00a.m. and before 4:00p.m., they are gone; making it difficult for people with serious cases to be attended to in case of emergencies. Sometimes, too, when you are tested, they prescribe drugs for you to buy at chemists which I feel is a big issue that needs to be addressed when establishing primary health care centres of this nature,” Lurther added.
Another resident, Yunusa Shuaibu commended the efforts of the Federal Government and the European Union but urged for ease of access by health care seekers.
“My prayer is that everything about this hospital should be accessed by all and not a few. Also, Gui village should not be the only focus as other communities around the airport do not have roads and water as well as hospitals. It will also go a long way in helping children under five to be immunized,” he said.
The district head of Gui Community, Alhaji Alhassan Yusuf, thanked the European Union Commission for establishing the Primary Health Care Centre. He however, pleaded for more support from the commission and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to establish a secondary school in the community now that there is a place to access primary health care.
“Our children trek three to four kilometers to reach the nearby secondary school and before they get there, they must have missed one or two lessons which is not encouraging,” he lamented.
Yusuf also pleaded with the Abuja Municipal Area Council chairman and the FCT minister to assist in tarring the road leading to the primary health care centre to ease accessing it by health care seekers from neigbouring communities.
The European Union Ambassador to ECOWAS and Nigeria, Ketil Karlsen, said the union has spent N3.8 billion to support the Federal Government’s effort in eradicating polio under its support programme known as the European Union Support to Immunization Governance in Nigeria (EU-SIGN).
According to the ambassador, the funds were utilized in purchasing 29 vehicles and solar refrigerators as well as construction of health facilities and cold stores in 23 states of the federation including the FCT with the latest being the recently commissioned Gui Primary Health Care Centre.
Karlsen added that the European Union support covers 24 states including the FCT in partnership with other international organizations like the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) which is aimed at delisting Nigeria from countries where polio still exists. It is a concerted effort that can only be achieved through working together
According to him, the major focus of the EU-SIGN is to improve the implementation of policies on Primary Health Care, strengthening routine immunization and reducing morbidity and mortality of under five children and to vaccinate against preventable and other communicable diseases.
Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ohanire, commended the European Union and its partner agency for her continuous effort in eradicating polio from Nigeria and access to primary health care services.
“It is a very good project and we welcome the help we can get from all our partners in pushing the primary healthcare agenda towards universal health coverage which is the primary focus of President Muhammadu Buhari’s health agenda,” he said.
The Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, said the agency in its effort to reposition and have a robust health care system has been partnering with the European Union which has been yielding positive results of which the most recent is the commissioning of the Primary Health Care Centre in Gui village.
It is hoped by the European Union that as the programme is winding down in January 2018, all the Health Care Centres and logistic procured by the union will be sustained by the Federal Government and help in ridding the country of polio.