BY SHAFII ADAM
For judiciously utilizing 6 million dollars within three years to strengthen primary health care system with birthed registration of over 400,000 children registered in 2024 exceeding the 10 percent target, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has commended Niger State Government saying the partnership with the state has significantly boosted healthcare services with the recruitment of 1500 new health workers and the retention of 400 existing volunteers.
Dr. Ibrahim Sesay, chief of Child Protection UNICEF gave the commendation at the close out of celebration of a Memorandum of Understanding MoU between Niger State Government in collaboration with Global Alliance Initiative GAVI and UNICEF aimed at strengthening and improving healthcare services at the Niger Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.
Dr. Sesay said UNICEF is ready to forge ahead with the collaboration which will originally end by March this year in order to better the health of Nigerlites which according to him is part of the Presidency’s New Hope Agenda adding that UNICEF would integrate services to issue national identification numbers to registered children to enable tracking of un-immunized children and identifying gaps in the system.
Earlier, Farmer Governor of Niger State, Mohammed Umar Bago expressed profound gratitude to the partners for supporting the state’s primary healthcare system which received seed money of about 6 million dollars matched with additional 1 million dollars by the state government.
He said the partnership has achieved significant milestone, including the recruitment of 1,500 new health staff, retention of 400 health staff and procurement of medical equipment, providing access to quality health services for vulnerable populace.
Governor Bago stressed on the state’s intention to launch a drone machine delivery project in the next 6 months to reach hard to reach areas, leveraging technology to bridge the gap.
Dr. Shyam Pathak Chief of Health UNICEF and Dr. Ibrahim Ahmed Dangana commissioner for primary health care in Niger State has these to say about the close out ceremony.
Niger State Head of service, Usman Abubakar and other dignitaries gave their separate goodwill messages at the ceremony in Minna.
Commissioner for Primary Health Care, Dr. Ibrahim Dangana highlighted that the memorandum of understanding cuts across different areas which include leadership and governance, service delivery, vaccine chain, human resource for health, community mobilization and sensitization, advocacy, data management, monitoring and evaluation and health financing in order to achieve universal health coverage.
Dr. Dangana said “with the memorandum of understanding we have been able to reach out to more children with life saving essential vaccines for immunization and at a start the state had more than 7,000 children that had never received a single dose of immunization but at the close of the MoU, we have been able to reach out to every child.”