Experts seek strengthened health system at LGs

Public health experts have called for a strengthened health system at the local government level to ensure effective community medicine practice and access to quality service delivery.

They made the call in Abuja during the 2019 lecture of the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.

A professor of Public Health and Community Medicine , University College Hospital , Ibadan, Michael Chiemeli Asuzu, said a major problem of the Nigerian health system was the inadequacy and very poor organization of the health services at the local government level.

He said all states public health laws should make provision for a medical officer of health for every local government of the country.

He said this was done in the colonial era and would go a long way in tackling some of the challenges to the practice of community medicine in the country.

According to him, the objective of community medicine is to keep everybody in its given statutory community of service, living at the maximum level of health possible for such person within the willing and available resources of the person, his family, community and state government.

Kaduna State Deputy Governor Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe said: “In my experience as a public health physician and public servant, it is by combining sound health policies with strategic actions that we will guarantee universal access to healthcare and improve health outcomes.”

She said health professionals, have a very vital role to play in Nigeria’s socioeconomic development, because nation building is inextricably linked with the health and wellness of the population of a country.