Akwa Ibom government has pledged partnership with reputable Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in communities across the state to improve healthcare delivery service.
Augustine Umoh, a professor of medicine and commissioner for health who stated this during the closeout ceremony of a family planning programme undertaken by an NGO, Breakthrough Action Nigeria, following the successful completion of its activities in six local government areas of the state with high unmet needs.
The local government areas included Uyo, Ini, Mbo, Esit Eket, Nsit Atai, and Ika.
Describing family planning services as part of the reproductive health programme, the commissioner said the state government would scale up programmes to cover many local government areas and lauded the NGO for its partnership with the state government.
He expressed the hope the partnership would be sustained after the NGO had “In found it important to work in the area of reproductive health” in the state while suggesting that the services should be expanded to cover more local government areas of the state.
In his presentation, Bassey Nsah, coordinator of BA-N in Akwa Ibom State said services commended in April last year with the training of 156 community volunteers and 12 local government area supervisors whil3 16 adhoc community mobilizers including local government team were trained.
According to him, with BA-N’s intervention, 156 community volunteers conducted communication for family planning uptake in 54 wards adding that a total of 143,22 persons were reached with family planning social behavior communication messages.
He said a total of 3,961 people took up a method of family planning during the period while 9,920 were referred to health facilities and identified low resource for health, lack of consumables leading to charge for family planning services in some facilities adding that in some facilities “ service charges were high.”
Nsah said various family planning intervention approaches including advocacy to religious and traditional rulers as well as the state ministry of health, community mobilisation, mass media, and service delivery links were adopted during the period.
He recommended the provision of consumables for family planning unit or integration of services at the Primary Health Centre facilities and routine supervisory visits to health facilities by the state ministry of health and continuous engagement of BAN trained community volunteers to create demand for family planning and other interventions.
The programme which was supported by the United States Agency for International Development and attended by directors of primary health centres and stakeholders in the health sector saw the presentation of awards to those who had distinguished themselves during the implementation of the programme.
