By Hassan Zaggi
Traditional rulers in the six states of the South West Nigeria have vowed to go the extra mile to support the primary health care services in the region.
To this end, the traditional rulers in the region are currently mobilizing volunteers to support primary health care services across all communities.
The Oon of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, disclosed this while responding to questions from journalists at the maiden quarterly review meeting of the Southwest Traditional Leaders Committee on Primary Health Care Delivery (SWTLC), in Abuja, Monday.
The review meeting was put together by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).
The SWTLC was inaugurated in 2021.
Speaking on the effort to support in ensuring that PHCs work optimally, the royal father said: “We don’t want to leave every effort to the federal or state government. The advocacy to improve man power in the primary healthcare sector is being led by us.
“As traditional leaders, we have a lot of volunteers within our communities and we are making efforts to use the strength of volunteers to actually impact on the primary healthcare initiatives in our various communities.
“So for us, it’s a very important role for us to do this partnership and we don’t want to joke with it and that is why all the traditional rulers in all the 6 South West states are here,” the Ooni of Ife said.
Responding to a question on the outcome of the support to PHC over the years, the monarch said: “The primary healthcare in our states are working with us. We have seen that they are very serious, very responsible, and the relationship is impactful.
“You can see it through the polio eradication in Nigeria, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is actually getting out of fashion and so many success stories as far as primary health care is concerned.
“Look at what is happening in the world, Monkey pox is in many countries, we are actually working with the primary healthcare centres to spread information about the disease. We have also contributed in the success of story of the response to COVID:19.
“In fact, Nigeria is one of the best countries in the world in terms of covid-19 response.”
The royal father insisted that: “As traditional rulers, we have the responsibility to take care of our people. We should look beyond government how we can help as far as primary health is concerned, how things can be better in our various communities. We are using the primary healthcare platform to reach our people.”
Speaking, the Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, explained that the meeting was aimed at ensuring an effective primary health care delivery to the people of the Southwest in particular and Nigeria in general.
“I am glad we are finally set to start the operationalization of the MOU between our esteemed royal fathers and the Federal Government through NPHCDA. This maiden quarterly meeting will, therefore, fine-tune the operational framework for members so that this partnership will be productive.
“Also, we humbly expect that at this meeting the committee will adopt an operational guide for members support to PHC programs and interventions (COVID-19 vaccination, polio, measles, yellow fever, rotavirus, all other routine vaccinations, maternal, newborn, and childhood nutrition) in the areas of role modeling, community advocacy, mobilization and sensitization, resource mobilization and monitoring.”
While declaring the meeting open, the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, called on royal fathers to “continue to sensitize your communities about the benefits of immunization and other PHC services, the risk of non-vaccination and in particular, to continue to promote COVID-19 vaccination in your domains.”
