The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the Sept. 19 Edo Governorship election, Mr. Osagie Ize-Iyamu has promised to set up a functional disease control agency in the state, if elected governor.
Mr. Ize-Iyamu said the agency would be responsible for surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of diseases such as HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and leprosy amongst others, Igbere TV reports.
Igbere TV gathered that this agency to be called the Edo State Centre for Disease Control will help the state, among others, to set targets for intervention to reduce the prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as the prevalence of child and maternal morbidity and mortality.
Ize-Iyamu while explaining the healthcare plan of his manifesto, the Simple Agenda on the sidelines of the tour of Ugboko, his home ward, added that the new
“Simple Strategic Health Development Plan” of his government will be formulated and implemented to replace the current healthcare system of Edo State that is in shambles.
He said, “We shall harmonize the Federal, State and Local Government health care plans and incorporate the National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) II, 2018-2022”.
The overall objectives of the Simple Strategic Health Development Plan will be to, “increase life expectancy through an integrated, reformed, restructured and functional health care system and provide the personnel, manpower and institutions that will assist our people by ensuring access to good healthcare delivery”.
In addition, the policy he said will seek to, “encourage public/private partnership by promoting private sector participation, standardization and compliance (and) establish appropriate regulatory institutions to set standards, monitor and enforce compliance”.
The APC candidate added that “to ensure that the good effect of all these services are felt by all, irrespective of their location and socio-economic status”, all of the State’s Healthcare centres will be reorganized.
For Primary Health Cares situated in rural communities, he said they, “will be equipped, adequately staffed with qualified personnel and made functional”, so they can, “provide continuous education concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them”, to residents.
Mr. Ize-Iyamu also said that these centres will help provide maternal, newborn and child health care, family planning, effective prevention and control for locally endemic and epidemic diseases, appropriate treatment for common diseases and injuries as well as the provision of essential drugs.
“There will be provision of an enabling environment and strategies to include community mobilization and advocacy, service integration, health research, capacity building, and international and non-governmental collaboration”, he said.
To ensure that the sick get required attention at record time, the APC candidate promised to provide a system whereby sick patients can be transferred to secondary and tertiary healthcare systems (provision of ambulances and motorboat ambulances especially for those in the riverine communities).
He said, “Our government will set up the Edo State Ambulance Service for emergencies and accident responses and ensure that it is functional and effective”.
To make healthcare accessible to all, he said 18 mobile health service buses for people in rural towns and villages in partnership with Local Government authorities will be provided.
According to Mr. Ize-Iyamu, the Simple Strategic Health Development Plan envisage that Cottage Hospitals located in Local Government Headquarters can deal with cases that are referred and cannot be treated at the Primary Healthcare centres.
He said the LGA cottage hospitals can also refer such patients to the General or Specialist Hospitals located in senatorial zones to which he will be great improve for expert care.
Meanwhile, the APC candidate has said that the, “present General Hospitals all over the state will be given face lifts to meet the increasing health challenges faced by our people”.
On the problem of inadequate manpower in the health sector and improved working conditions of doctors, nurses and other health workers, he promised, “to motivate them and improve their service delivery capabilities”, while providing drugs and other hospital equipment to ensure that the health sector meets the new Sustainable Development Goals”.
