Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in Nigeria serve as the cornerstone of the country’s healthcare system, playing a crucial role in providing basic healthcare services to communities across the nation. Established with the aim of delivering accessible, affordable, and equitable healthcare to all citizens, PHCs are fundamental in addressing the healthcare needs of both rural and urban populations.
The concept of PHCs in Nigeria dates back to the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, which emphasized the importance of primary healthcare as the key to achieving “Health for All” by the year 2000. In line with this global initiative, Nigeria adopted a primary healthcare approach, with PHCs serving as the focal point for delivering essential health services, including maternal and child health, immunization, family planning, treatment of common diseases, and health education.
Despite the significant strides made in establishing PHCs across the country, challenges persist in ensuring their effectiveness and sustainability. Issues such as inadequate funding, infrastructural deficiencies, shortages of skilled healthcare personnel, and geographical disparities pose ongoing obstacles to the optimal functioning of PHCs. Additionally, factors such as cultural beliefs, socioeconomic factors, and limited awareness about the importance of primary healthcare contribute to gaps in service utilization.
Efforts to strengthen PHCs in Nigeria include government initiatives aimed at increasing funding, improving infrastructure, enhancing the training and retention of healthcare workers, and implementing community-based healthcare programs. Partnerships with international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local communities also play a vital role in supporting PHCs and extending their reach to underserved population.
These efforts by the Federal and State government over the past two years as it affects PHCs in Agwa especially Obudi and Mgbala, forms the focus of this write up. It is a noteworthy fact that irrespective of the challenges of insecurity within the boundaries of Agwa, the Federal and State Government through the Primary Health Agency of Imo State have always benefitted Obudi and Mgbala PHCs in Agwa, but whether the funds are being used for the purposes they’re been released or the healthcare objectives are beneficial to the people of Agwa is an issue for another day.
In 2022, the government came up with a Basic healthcare programme aimed at fixing infrastructures in the primary health facilities. Amongst other things, a quarterly payment of three hundred thousand Naira (#300,000.00) was approved for each of the facilities that benefited from the program; fortunately, the two aforementioned PHCs in Agwa were part of these beneficiaries. These centres were advised to work with their communities, in creating joint bank accounts where these monies are deposited quarterly and also form a committee from the community which will supervise and ensure that the monies were judiciously utilized.
In that same year, the State government through her agency credited Obudi and Mgbala Health centres with six hundred thousand Naira(600,000.00) each, towards the tail end of the year which coincidentally marked the beginning of the insecurity in Agwa.
While this payment continued through 2023, the Federal Government came up with the National Health Insurance Scheme; which aimed at providing free medical care for beneficiaries within one year; beneficiaries only needed to approach the PHCs for diagnosis and free treatment.
Funds were made available for purchase of drugs, test kits etc to those in charge of the PHCs on monthly basis based on the number of beneficiaries from that particular facility. Obudi PHC suffered little or no payment monthly due to few beneficiaries it got on the first batch, while her counterpart, Mgbala, had huge beneficiaries; the true identities of those beneficiaries is also an issue to be investigated thoroughly. The first batch of beneficiaries for this programme expired few months ago.
It is so unfortunate that with these programs, people paid to access medical treatments in these centres whenever they were open. When the crisis became so heated, the government didn’t stop crediting these facilities for the purchases, but nobody was treated with such provisions. The second batch of that Health insurance program is currently ongoing and these two centres are very active but I doubt if these centres have extended the free medical care and treatment expected of them to the beneficiaries.
The importance of creating awareness, and constituting a committee to oversee some of these things can never be overemphasized. There is need to always ensure that our people benefit from these health programs at all time because it is their right and privilege as the citizens of this country Nigeria and also the fact that the PHCs are what we as a clan can boast of now.
There’s need to take care of what we have now, while we expect a bigger one. Light should be beamed on the available PHCs in Agwa, so that our people do not keep dieing avoidable and preventable deaths due to poverty while the government have free healthcare programs running in the PHCs. It’s time we buckled up and ensure the PHCs accountably deliver the Government’s healthcare objectives and mandate to our people.
Health is Wealth!
Agwa must be better in our Time.
