The Director, Enugu State Ministry of Health, Dr Okechukwu Ossai, has said that the Federal Government`s move to resuscitate 10,000 Primary Health care Centres (PHC) will enhance the nation`s healthcare delivery.
Ossai told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in ?Enugu on Friday that the policy would reduce maternal and infant mortality.
He opined that the Federal Government’s move to equip and run PHC for 24 hours would check health-related migration and strengthen community healthcare.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had announced government’s readiness to revamp 10,000 PHC centres nationwide.
Ehanire said each state would get 1.5 million dollars to drive the revitalisation of the projects.
“The project would ensure that no matter how small a council area is it will have at least one functional PHC centre, which runs 24 hours with the number of needed healthy personnel as well as equipment to go with.
“The project when running would reduce maternal, infant, child and other related death predominantly at the community level in the country, “ Ossai had said.
Ossai said that before now, the PHC was one of the health facilities operated on an abysmal level expected of a health institution.
“Before now, the problem with PHC is that most of them are locked up at the night hours, they lack manpower; no electricity to run especially at night hours and they lack health facilities all together, “ he noted.
NAN reports that the Federal Government had planned to have a holistic resuscitation of the centres by dealing with all lapses plaguing the PHC delivery capacity.
It is believed that the 10,000 PHC will be scattered in the 9,572 political wards division of the country; whether through strengthening existing PHC centres or totally building a new PHC centre in wards. (NAN)