By Chioma Umeha
The Ogun State Government has said that the
inauguration of a nine-man committee to work on the adoption and implementation
of the national task-shifting and sharing policy will deliver as expected
without any hitches.
The policy was formulated by the federal
government to address the challenges of shortage of skilled health personnel
and inequitable distribution of the appropriate cadre of the health workforce
to deliver services where most likely needed.
The task -shifting policy dissemination was
organised by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and Ogun State Primary
Health Care Development Board (OGPHECADEB) with the support of Pathfinder
International, Nigeria.
The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Babatunde
Ipaye represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr. Nafiu Aigoro,
said during the inauguration in Abeokuta, that the development would create
room for several health care professionals to deliver essential services at
improving access to efficient health care service delivery for the people.
Ipaye noted that there was need to ensure proper
supervision, monitoring and evaluation when the policy is fully implemented to
guide against exceeding limitations by the categories of health workers
involved, calling on other stakeholders to also ensure its success.
“For this policy to work out appropriately there
should be proper supervision, monitoring and evaluation process so that
categories of health workers to be involved will not go beyond their
limitations,” Ipaye noted.
Also speaking, the Project Officer, Pathfinder
International, Nigeria, Dr. Adenike Jagun applauded the state government for
the giant strides, saying the step would bring about high quality health care
delivery on the people, particularly at enhancing access to family planning
services in a way to improve maternal and child mortality rate in the country.
“Ogun state has the chance to reduce the maternal
and child deaths to the barest minimal and to meet up with target of 54.2 per
cent of Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) by 2018, the implementation of the
policy must carried out to the letter alongside separation of budget line for
family planning,”Jagun affirmed.
The committee include, Dr. Oluranti Oladeinde as
the Chairman, while Dr. Daniel Adesanya, Dr. Atinuke Duze, Mrs. Kemi Balogun
among others are members.
