In its efforts to improve the standards of the primary health care services, the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has approved the recruitment of additional 3,059 front line health workers.

This is coming ahead of the completion of the 255 primary health centres (PHCs) currently undergoing renovation and upgrade across the 255 political wards in the three senatorial zones of the state.

Chairman, Primary Health Care Development Agency Board, Kaduna, Dr Sani Muhammed Jibrin, disclosed this during a Primary Health Care Under One Roof (PHCUOR) review meeting held on Tuesday in Kaduna.

He said that the State Government has opened its health sector for citizens and other partners can contribute their quota to healthcare delivery at the grassroots.

According to him, before Governor El-Rufai assumed office, primary health care services were fragmented at various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) elsewhere.

“But now, the way we are operating is that, everything is put under one roof. We now have one management, one plan, one monitoring and evaluation, everything concerning PHC is now under the agency.

“When we came in 2015, because of the fragmentation, the total score for PHC in Kaduna was less than 40 percent. But now, with the transfer of staff to all the LGAs, with the renovation of 255 health care facilities across the state, with renovation of health office in the LGAs, we are now scored over 70 percent,” he said.

The chairman noted that, the challenges the state is facing is the issue of funding and also human resource which the state government has already started addressing by giving approval for recruitment of 3,059 front line health workers in the state.

He however called on civil society organisations and the international NGOs working in Kaduna state to put heads together with the board so resources could be put together to address wastages.

Deputy Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Adeniyi Ekisola, who presented the 2018 PHCUOR in Kaduna, revealed that though the state performed creditably well in office set up at 100 percent and funding sources and structure at 86 percent, it performed poorly in legislation and managed services programme (MSP) put at 38 percent and 53 percent respectively.

Earlier, the Convener and Co-Chair of OGP in Kaduna who doubled as Chairman, Initiative for Integrated Grassroots Empowerment and Support in partnership with Development Research and Project Centre (IIGES-PAS), Mustapha Jumare, said the programme was all about coming together of stakeholders on PHCUOR as it aligned to OGP which is the grand finale of OGP week in Kaduna State.

PHCUOR is a health package where services such as family planning, maternal and child health, nutrition programmes, malaria, HIV/AIDs, immunisation are centralised at primary healthcare level for effective service delivery.