BY MAGNUS EMUJI
THE need for stronger collaboration with stakeholders in the health sector and community leaders in Delta State to ensure that healthcare facilities are more functional for the overall benefit of the people has been brought to the fore.
The State Programme Officer for a Civil Society Organization on Malaria Control, Immunization and Nutrition (ACOMIN), Juliet Obiajulu said this during their monthly meeting in Asaba.
Obiajulu said that it was necessary to build the capacity of the CBOs working in five Local Government Areas that they were intervening which included Oshimili South, Oshimili North, Uvwie, Udu and Warri South for them to strategize on how best to solve issues in the course of carrying out their activities.
She said that knowledge and information sharing were important for the realization of the objectives of the project and lauded the CBOs for the success recorded in the project, saying that communities were now aware of the project more than before.
Obiajulu explained that the initiative was aimed at ensuring that communities owned the primary healthcare centres in their domain, adding that in some of the PHCs that they were intervening, communities have taken it upon themselves to clear overgrown weeds around the centres, repair damaged water machine, as well purchase matrasses for the facilities.
Also speaking, the State Tuberculosis Coordinator, Mr Miracle Onyeukwu, represented by the community representative of KRUDI, Success Onyeukwu appreciated the State Programme Officer and other key players for their efforts in ensuring the success of the project.
Earlier, the Director of Social Mobilisation at Delta State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Natalie Afebuamhe said that the agency was committed to ensuring that there was health behavioural change through health education.
In an interview with journalists, the Executive Director of Riverine Health Initiative Engr Honesty Omagbemi said that ACOMIN has always engaged them in their community-based activities to record success in the PHCs that they are implementing at Okpanam just as he disclosed that their efforts are already yielding positive results.