Kaduna State Government says it has upgraded 226 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) out of the 255 functional PHCs in the state.
The health project were executed in each of the political ward of the state.
The Kaduna State Government says it has completed the renovation and upgrading of 226 Primary Healthcare Centres, out of the planned 255 functional PHCs, one in each political ward of the state.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Amina Baloni stated this in Kaduna on Friday, while providing updates on health status, budget performance, COVID-19 intervention and renovation of 255 PHCs in the state.
She spoke at the Open Kaduna Health Quarterly Interactive Forum, organised by Kaduna State Maternal New-born and Child Accountability Mechanism (KADMAM).
The meeting was organised in collaboration with the state Ministry of Health and other Development Partners with the theme, “#Open Kaduna Health in the Midst of COVID-19 Pandemic”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the state government began the renovation and upgrade of the 255 PHCs in 2017, to increase access to quality healthcare services.
The commissioner said that so far, 226 have been fully completed, while 28 were at over 50 per cent completion and one below 50 per cent completion.
She said that out of the 226 completed PHCs, 81 were in Zone 1, 71 in Zone 2, and 74 in Zone 3, while five of the uncompleted PHCs were in Zone 1, 10 in Zone 2 and 14 in Zone 3.
On budget performance, the commissioner said that N1.5 billion was released out of the N7.9 billion allocated for the ministry and its departments and agencies for capital expenditure in first and second quarter.
She said the released fund was for the ministry, Primary Health Care Development Agency, state Contributory Health Management Authority, and the Health Supplies Management Agency.
Others include the State College of Nursing and Midwifery and Shehu Idris College of Health Science and Technology.
“On maternal health, we have recorded a decline in antenatal care attendance between January and June 2020, while uptake of contraceptive services had increased within the period.
“The practice of exclusive breastfeeding had also increased, including uptake of Vitamin A supplement due to the six months maternity leave declared by the state government and availability of Vitamin A.
“A significant number of children under five years have been fully immunised, but the children were not receiving long lasting insecticide nets due to stock out.
“Malaria treatment and prevention is a priority area of the government,” she said.
On COVID-19 intervention, Baloni said that the government approved N1.2 billion for the control of the disease while the World Bank donated N100 million.
According to her, other donations were received from philanthropists to combat COVID-19, in form of personal protective equipment, drugs, and consumables.
Earlier, the Co-Chair of KADMAM, Mr Mustapha Jumare pointed out that low-cash backing of budget releases is undermining performance of the health sector in the state.
Jumare acknowledged a reasonable budgetary allocation to the health sector by the state government, in line with the Abuja Declaration of a minimum of 15 per cent budgetary allocation to the sector.
He, however, pointed out that in spite the reasonable budgetary allocations, the health indices in the state had remained very disturbing.
Jumare said that the interactive forum was organised with support from DFID-funded Partnership to Engage Reform and Learn (PERL), Lafiya-UK support for health in Nigeria Programme, and SuNMaP2 support to the National Malaria Programme.