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Health Interactive With Dr Aminu Magashi Shekarau Lamentation,
Health And Developmental Issues I
will like to start this discourse by saying that it takes a lot of
courage, good will and heart for some one to score himself or his
affairs low in the eyes of the world. What is often seen in It
was reported that the The same story was corroborated in Daily Trust of Wednesday, 1st, September, 2004 entailed ‘ Shekarau Angry With Commissioners and special advisers, particularly health, education and water resources as narrated in the news report. Well, to me, that is not a celebrating development but an opportunity to look back and restrategies and discover pitfalls and ensures remedy for the overall development of the state. Most
of the issues I intend to highlight in this discourse already I
mentioned them on this page in a discourse ‘Health
And Development: As Shekarau Marks One Year. Published on To
begin with, when this administration came to office over a year ago, it
was reported that Mal shekarau was concerned and bothered about the
exodus of doctors and other health workers from the state to greener
posture ( federal government and abroad ) , with effect to that, a
committee for health workers
salaries, welfare and
remuneration was inaugurated
by the commissioner of health and
to my knowledge, the said committee did an excellent job and reported
back, another committee was set up to review all the recommendations
given by the first committee and submitted its report too. Till today,
there is no serious commitment on the part of government to improve the
salaries, welfare and remuneration of the health workers. This of course
is in recognition that the state is among the few states in the
federation paying far below expectation to the health workers, even
Jigawa, Zamfara and Katsina states,
the immediate neighbors of Kano are doing better. The difference in
payment between a medical
officer in Another
issue of paramount importance to the state as well as
other Northern states is Eclampsia
( Pregnancy Induced Hypertension ) a condition that is being
experienced mostly by women during first pregnancy who during second
part of pregnancy present with high blood pressure, body swelling which
if not control will end up with fits and convulsion either before,
within or after labour. From hospital based data in 2002, Eclampsia
alone accounted for 51 % of all maternal death related to pregnancy and
its complication at The only short coming to that policy is the fact that, it is not going to achieve reduction in the incidence, and prevalence of the disease, it will neither appreciably reduce the mortality rate nor the influx of eclamptic patients to hospital which as a result of that beds are inadequate to admit all of them. As I always preach that specific problems need specific interventions, Eclampsia is not an exception, to reduce the occurrence, incidence and prevalence and death due to the disease is to ensure community intervention to complement the free antenatal services. I call on the commissioner of health to create a State Action Committee On Eclampsia or a task force on that as a survival tool, the committee to be a multi sectoral by involving bureaucrats, civil societies, media and private sector whom will be tasked with drafting an action plan for the state on eclampsia, notably among its function will be, to come up with a training manual for providing effective training and capacity building and skills on basic management of eclampsia and other related illnesses to managers and staff of health posts at various local governments, provision of basic facilities for detection of the signs and symptoms of the disease and to ensure massive awareness raising campaigns in the available electronic media in the state Funding may be an impediment to implement such tasks, but I believe the state government enjoys a lot of good will to enter into agreement with the 44 LGAS in the state to be committing on monthly basis 1 % of their monthly allocation towards this mission. Overhauling the problem of eclampsia by adopting this approach will reduce the cases of prolong/ obstructed labour, bleeding during pregnancy and other infection which will be detected at the right time to ensure safe motherhood. On another angle, the honorable commissioner in the past has inaugurated a committee called Health Sector Community Support Committee being headed by Hajiya Zahra Sabo Nanono with representation from former commissioners of health, former and serving directors in the ministry and hospitals, representative of religious leaders, traditional institution and private sector. Although this action is highly laudable, but it is obvious the committee in its composition has totally neglected the civil societies ( NGOs ) who have the time, interest, commitment, energy and wherewithal to raise resources and of course to pursue agenda vigorously. I will say that the performance and the success of the committee up till now are at the level of holding meetings and paying homage and courtesy calls. I strongly advise the commissioner to expand the horizon of the committee to at least have three representations from civil societies. The HIV saga which is also afflicting the state also needs some serious reorientation and design. When in December, 2001 some of us that represented the state in a 7 day development of emergency HIV action plan in Benue state convened by National Action Committee on AIDS and UNDP, we thought by the time we were back , the state would establish its State Action Committee on AIDS and State Project Team, just like other states that have done so and equally benefiting from the World Bank credit giving to Nigeria through NACA on behalf of states and other stakeholders. Three years after that meeting, Kano do not have SACA not to talk of SPT apart from few officials of health ministry who parade themselves as SACA, no regular meetings , no proffer documentation and action plan. The SACA and SPT that I envisage is the one with the representation of NGOs, ministry of education, women affairs and information, religious leaders, traditional institution and people living with HIV, with the ministry of health taking the lead. I
believe that, Dr Sanda Mohammed has all that it takes to lead the health
sector in the state and equally to look at these issues critically with
the aim of seeing what is implementable under the current circumstances.
In conclusion, I suggest to his Excellency, the executive governor of Dr
Magashi Is The Executive Director Of Community Health And Research
Initiative, |