Bauchi State Government through the State Primary Health Care Development Agency (SPHCDA) with the support of UNICEF has engaged 23 Medical Directors to work in some selected Health Care Centers in the state.
The effort is part of the innovative and pragmatic approach to strengthening the quality and quantity of maternal newborn and child health indicators in the state.
Speaking during the engagement process and signing up the agreement at EOC Bauchi, Executive Chairman SPHCDA, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed revealed that this idea is being informed looking at the brazen concerns and challenges in the maternal newborn child health performance indicators with the attendance of yearly incessant disease outbreaks across the state.
A statement, Sunday, by Ibrahim Sani, Information Officer of Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA), said the Chairman explained that currently, the data indices of the state show that a mass number of women and pregnant women are not patronizing health care centers to access services.
The indicators of skilled birth attendance, antenatal care, PNC, FP, and of Routine Immunization were not encouraging, therefore stiff measures have to be taken in order to change the ugly narrative
According to the statement, the representatives of the UNICEF who separately spoke about the ideals and purpose of this engagement Dr. Emmanuel Emedo and Mr. Oluseyi Olosunde both emphasized the need for the newly engaged Medical personnel to focus more attention, come up with robust innovative strategies using their professional expertise that would hasten improvement so as to change the status of the state current health imbalance.
“Each Medical Doctor is expected to serve 24 hours service spent in 4 health facilities per week. What we expect from you is that every day you record the number of the sorts of diseases you attended to at a facility.
“Another important thing to do is to support lower cadre officers because your job there is beyond clinical services” UNICEF representatives noted.
The representative further explained that “Significantly, having selected based on available clinical prowess’s, there’s need to improve and strengthen governance and accountability at our various health facilities while taking into account we inculcate behavior change in health providers.
“The engagement was essentially meant to be a 3 months temporary services agreement but, subject to review if that will be providing the desired results and can change the status of our state indicators where maternal and child health is improving by resolving all intertwined bottlenecks
”According to the document of this agreement, it says this Adhoc support targets only medical officers. HR support will be for three months in the first instance. All the twenty (20) LGAs will be covered, by one medical doctor per LGA. Four (4) PHCs Cluster models will be adopted. One medical doctor attached to each LGA will cover four PHCs (one day per PHC per week) ensuring delivery of quality integrated RMNCAH+N services, quality data management, and accountability.
“On supervision about the kinds of services to be rendered, each medical officer is to work closely with his assigned Local Government Health Authority Management Team. Direct supervision and monitoring will be carried out by SEMCHIC Program Manager, while all the oversight to be carried out by BSPHCDA team and UNICEF Nigeria Bauchi Field Office Health Team to ensure the quality of service
“The MDs will also help in providing technical guidance to each PHC management team to ensure functionality towards effective governance and coordination platform. They will also support evidence-based planning – Settlement/HF-based REW micro plan updated quarterly, a business plan developed quarterly (including targets for all interventions and strategies to improve access, and quality.
“Others are to coordinate performance tracking – monthly analysis of RMNCAH+N data and provide feedback to the team. The assigned HFs should be able technically and programmatically guided to ensure quality delivery of services. MDs are responsible for the delivery conduct of integrated daily/weekly fixed sessions, and integrated outreaches by all identified HFs.
“Support quarterly target setting and Monthly health data and key indicators in assigned PHCs are analyzed and finding bottlenecks are identified, and teams mobilized to take corrective actions for effective delivery of essential health services in the ward.
“They are also to provide mentorship, on-the-job capacity building, and technical guidance to health care workers, using standard national sops/guidelines to ensure quality RMNCAH+N services
“Knowing very well, human resources are the heartbeat of health service delivery. This is evidenced by the fact that the quantity of health workforce and quality are positively associated with coverage, and infant, child, and maternal survival.
“The health workers determine health outputs and outcomes, they drive health systems performance. Shortages of the health workforce are perceived to be widespread and supplies of basic health care professionals in Bauchi State are grossly inadequate to meet requirements”.
