By Hassan Zaggi
Concerned by the fact that 80 per cent of incidence of maternal and child deaths in Nigeria occur at the community levels, largely due to the lack of services of skilled health workers in the Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has introduced an initiative to address the situation.
Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja, yesterday, the Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, disclosed that the initiative is christened- Community-based Health Research, Innovative-training and Services Program (CRISP).
The initiative, according him, is a multi-stakeholder investment which will be funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria with support from development partners, philanthropists, among others
Dr. Faisal, therefore, explained that “CRISP is a partnership between the Teaching Hospitals, Federal Medical Centres, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, State Primary Health Care Boards, Local Government Health Authorities and the communities to support primary health care development.
“The intervention specifically focuses on increasing, retaining and improving the quality, adequacy, competency, and distribution of a committed multidisciplinary primary health care workforce that includes facility outreach and community-based health workers supported through effective management supervision and appropriate compensation.
“CRISP aims to leverage the rural posting of Resident Doctors from teaching hospitals to boost and guarantee the quality of care at the PHC level through their active involvement in primary health service delivery.
“This is targeted at improving Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, amongst other health services within the benefiting communities.”
He further noted that, “our CRISP initiative will operate at scale involving Teaching Hospitals and Federal Medical Centres across the country.
“This means that the CRISP resident doctors from the engaged teaching hospitals and federal medical centres would be deployed to the primary health care facilities to support service provision and on-the-job capacity building of the PHC health workers.
“CRISP is targeted for implementation across the 36 states of the Federation plus the FCT in a phased manner. “
The initiative will be formally launched on Monday next week.
On his part, the World Health Organization(WHO) Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Walter Kazadi Molumbo, reiterated the relevance of the initiative and assured that the global world health body will give it all the needed support.
Molumbo disclosed that the WHO Director-General is set to unveil a strategy next week during the 75th World Assembly, highlighting the five key areas of focus: promoting health, providing health services, protecting health, empowering health through digital technology and innovation.
