By Musa Abdullahi Sufi
Excellent Development is on the way to the establishment of the Kano first Heart Centre at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano, Nigeria.
On Saturday I attended a virtual meeting of the maiden stakeholder’s engagement for a plan toward the establishment of the ‘Kano Heart Centre’ at the AKTH.
It is scary to learn about the situation of heart problems in the state and the serious challenges to accessing the needed care, and this initiative is a powerful way forwards to improve the lives of people with heart-related challenges and save more lives.
The Maiden Stakeholders Engagement with a theme: Burden of cardiovascular diseases in Nigeria; challenges, prospects and financing, was hosted by Africa Budget Health Network (AHBN) and moderated by the AHBN’s Coordinator, Dr Aminu Magashi Garba.
The initiative was organized by Sahara Heart Foundation in collaboration with the AKTH and other partners.
The lead speakers’ presentations were excellent, Dr Hadiza Sa’idu and Dr Jameel Isma’il presented the key papers that engaged the audience for over two hours.
At the end of the two hours engaging meeting, I went home with key takeaways that includes; Partnership must be in place to succeed, Strategic advocacy and awareness should be smartly geared to policymakers, community leaders, and other stakeholders and Identification, engagement and involvement of philanthropists are very important.
Others are; the need for a learning visit with the already established centre in Sokoto state, media must support the awareness by engaging the key stakeholders including speaking to survivors.
It was stated that the board should pay advocacy to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to explore opportunities and collaboration and work with the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and media to achieve more advocacy and awareness of the plans and more.
Congratulations to the organizers, presenters and over 200 participants of the virtual historic meeting.
Sufi writes from Kano.
