USAID set to improve healthcare delivery in rural communities

A United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project, Health Workforce Management Activity, is set to improve the quality of healthcare service delivery in rural communities of the FCT. Speaking during the inauguration of the project tagged: “FCT Quality Human Resources for Health Stakeholders Training Advisory”, the Country Director of Health Workforce Management, Samuel Ngobua, […]

A United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project, Health Workforce Management Activity, is set to improve the quality of healthcare service delivery in rural communities of the FCT.

Speaking during the inauguration of the project tagged: “FCT Quality Human Resources for Health Stakeholders Training Advisory”, the Country Director of Health Workforce Management, Samuel Ngobua, on Tuesday in Abuja, said the objective of the activity was to improve quality of health workers’ training, strengthen human resources, information systems, improve governance and management of health workforce, as well as develop and implement interventions to optimise worker retention.

Mr Ngobua said, “This is a USAID funded activity, and the emphasis is on strengthening essential basic healthcare services in the rural and remote areas of priority states and the FCT. What we have just done today is the inauguration of the Training and Advisory Group (TAG), which has been done in USAID-supported states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Bauchi and Ebonyi.

“This is the last that we are doing, in the FCT, and the primary objective is to ensure that we develop a well-motivated and skilled workforce that will be deployed to the rural primary health facilities of the FCT in order to meet the essential basic healthcare service needs and reduce the poor indicators, most especially, maternal, newborn and child indices. In a layman’s term, to reduce deaths as a result of women’s delivery where there are no health workers.”

Mr Ngobua stressed that the activity would support institutions that trained essential health workers: nurses, midwives and community health extension workers, so that the quality of healthcare services in rural areas could be upgraded.

He added that, “We will be working with the Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS) of the FCT Administration (FCTA) to ensure that these objectives are met.”

The acting Secretary of HHSS, Dr Mohammed Kawu, who was represented by Dr Francis Alu, acting General Ganager (GM), FCT Health Services Management Board, said healthcare service delivery in the territory was constrained by shortage of human resources.

Dr Kawu said, “The FCTA has done a lot in providing health infrastructural facilities and equipping them, but the major challenge is human resources. There are people retiring, people are dying, people are resigning and people are even absconding to look for greener pastures outside the shores of this country, and this has affected the human resources available for services.”

He, however, expressed optimism that the activity would help in advocacy and mobilisation of funds in a bid to improve the quality of health service delivery in the territory, especially in the rural areas.