Gov. Dikko Radda of Katsina State has released over N10 billion to chairmen of the 34 local government areas of the state to build primary health centres.
The governor said this during an interactive session with journalists on Monday in Katsina, saying that three primary health centres would be constructed in each council area.
He added that “when I became the governor, I talked about World Health Organisation’s resolution on the need to have functional primary health centres in rural areas that can work 24 hours.
“The aim is to reduce child and maternal mortality and other difficulties faced by rural people whenever they are sick.
“If we have functional healthcare facilities in rural areas, even a woman in labour can be attended to by a professional health worker at any time.
“And if there is need to take her to a secondary healthcare facility, the centre should have an ambulance that can convey her there.”
According to him, there should also be accommodation for health workers, enough drugs, constant/potable water, and electricity supply, among others.
Radda revealed that the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) would provide those institutions with running cost, from N250,000 to N400,000.
“This fund is enough for the running of daily activities of the centres. But we cannot benefit from the fund until we have fully functional healthcare centres.
“If we have functional primary health centres in rural areas, it will assist in decongesting hospitals in urban areas, and the health level of the people will improve.
“The only challenge we are going to face is staffing, because we have shortages of staff to man these centres. To recruit health workers is not easy now, but we will do that in due course.
“However, we have over 5,000 casual staff and if we are to confirm them, their salaries would double that of the over 7,000 teachers recently recruited.
“This is because the salary of some health workers almost tripple that of teachers.
“That’s the challenge now, but in spite of that, we will recruit health workers in due course.
“Before the end of the year, we’ll make sure that no fewer than 361 functional primary health care centres are provided in the state.”(NAN)
By Abbas Bamalli
