By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The Federal Government has again identified Environment Health profession as vital to a healthy society.
The Minister of Environment, Dr Muhammad Abubakar, stated this at the 1st national summit on environmental health held in Abuja.
The summit with theme, “Rebranding environmental health practice: breaking barriers, unlocking opportunities” was organised by the Environmental Health Officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON) during which over 3,000 news practitioners were inducted.
The Minister sssured environmental health professionals of government’s support to their various efforts and laudable initiatives and innovations towards improving societal healthcare.
He said the ministry would continue to support the laudable initiatives of the council with the view to providing adequate enablement for effective and efficient environmental health practice.
He stated that the relevance of the profession in controlling communicable and contagious diseases could not be overemphasized and would be improved upon for a healthy society.
The minister also charged the newly inducted practitioners to contribute their quota in nation building by practicing within the confines of their professional ethics.
He urged both the public and private sector stakeholders to forge a partnership that would improve the nation’s public health practice
Dr Yakubu Baba, Registrar, EHORECON, in his remarks, said the summit brought environmental health experts together to identify the profession’s strength, challenges and prospects.
Baba noted that the practice of the profession currently was disjointed with some components domiciled in the ministry of health, environment and water resources.
He emphasized the need for them to be integrated to create significant impact to the society’s health.
“We will discuss to have a unified structure that will allow mobility of our personnel from one ministry to another, one department to another.
Stakeholders at the event identified partnership among the various components of the environmental health sector as key to achieving any meaningful success in environmental and public health practice in Nigeria
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, urged the environmental health officers to collaborate with the traditional institution in the country to ensure success in environmental health practice.
He noted that there was the need to revisit the practice of environmental sanitation, based on a collaborative approach, especially in the villages because, according to him, most of the environmental problems are in the villages.
Ekweremadu, represented by Prof. Etim Essien of the National Assembly, charged EHORECON to partner traditional rulers and involve them from time to time, particularly with a view to educating and sensitizing them and their subjects on the importance of environmental health.
Dr Kunle Williams, President, Pest Control Association of Nigeria, said the private sector had been yearning for various ways of collaborating with government to remove some of the barriers.
