The Benue State government has been tasked to immediately address the deplorable state of Primary Health Care Centres (PHCs) affecting several communities across the state.
The call for action follows an investigative report by PREMIUM TIMES disclosing that PHCs in Otukpo, Logo, Ohimini, And Vandeikya local government areas (LGAs) of the state do not meet the minimum standard or non-existent thereby making access to health care a life-threatening ordeal and hellish.
The Managing Director of The Comforter and Diagnostic Centre, Dr. Ola Golden, urged the Benue State government to quickly intervene in the plight of rural dwellers while asking citizens to hold their leaders to account.
The medical practitioner made the call during an anti-corruption radio programme, Public Conscience, produced by the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG), on Wednesday in Abuja.
He stressed that the Governor Hyacinth Alia-led government must prioritise primary health care as it is the most basic port of care while identifying that much effort is required to change how PHCs are managed in Nigeria.
Golden lamented that PHCs are unfortunately not insulated from the pervasive corruption ravaging several sectors in Nigeria, adding that citizens must take advantage of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting financial autonomy to local governments by demanding accountability from leaders at that level.
He said: “The state government (Benue) should know that health is wealth and without health every other thing they budget for is nothing. They should take the health system as their primary responsibility.
“The local and the state governments should be held accountable because now that there is a law that makes payments to the local government directly, now is the time to hold them accountable.
“Before now, it has always been the state government that had been covering up the inactivity of the local government areas, but now that they’ll be paying them directly, it is time to hold them to account.
“It will take a whole lot of effort to be able to change the way the primary health care is being run generally in this country. Until such a time where the healthcare workers are being encouraged to stay near where people are, it will be a waste of money to keep building different types of structures around the country in the name of primary healthcare centers”.
The Project Associate at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Uchenna Igwe, urged the state government to act on the investigation and ensure there is value for funds allocated to the PHCs.
While regretting that citizens are at the receiving end of the deplorable state of PHCs, Igwe stressed that “health facilities at rural communities are perpetually set up to fail.”
He said: “The major problems of PHCs remain poor funding, corruption, and mismanagement,” hoping that the financial autonomy granted to LGAs across Nigeria will improve the poor state of healthcare at the grassroots.
A Benue State-based investigative journalist, Manasseh Mbachii, called on the state government for a swift intervention while decrying the lack of action despite investigations exposed that PHCs in Otukpo, Logo, Ohimini, And Vandeikya LGAs are either dilapidated, non-existent or unfit for human use.
Mbachii also identified corruption, lack of accountability, and monitoring by government agencies as major factors compounding the woes of rural dwellers in accessing health care at PHCs in the North-central state.
Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio programme PRIMORG uses to draw government and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria.
The programme has the support of the MacArthur Foundation.
