By Asmau Ahmad
The Federal Ministry of Health has released guidelines for self care/self injection, to improve the existing health care delivery in the country.
The Director of Reproductive Health, in the Ministry, Mr Lawrence Anyanwu, announced this in Enugu on Wednesday at a one -day workshop organised by the ministry for relevant stakeholders in the health sector.
Mr Anyanwu said the ministry had partnered with a number of stakeholders, including Governors from selected states to develop the guideline.
He explained that in Nigeria, about 145 girls and women of reproductive age, die daily from pregnancy related complications.
The director said that the essence was to continue to improve the existing health care delivery system, by empowering individual with adequate information and commodities as well as outlet to take care of health needs of the people.
“When we say self care, it means the ability of individual and communities to promote health, prevent diseases and maintain good health.
“This programme is aimed at empowering individuals with cooperate information and capabilities to understand their health need without going to interact with the health care providers.
“It is very important now, that we are having COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that there are minimal contacts with other individuals,” he added.
Anyanwu complained that Enugu State was not doing well in supervising the programmes, noting that out of 17 council areas in the state, only 10 council areas were doing proper supervision and monitoring as directed by the federal ministry.
He encouraged the state to support the Local government supervisors of health financially to enhance effective supervision and monitoring.
He urged the state to step in with little stipend to encourage the supervisors to monitor the initiatives.
Anyanwu also complained that a number of personnel in the LGAs were not skilled enough to complete the job of educating the masses saying they were missing out in some of the key indicators to document services that were provided.
In her presentation, Mrs Charity Asala, National Coordinator, White Ribbon Alliance, Nigeria, a Nongovernmental Organisation, said the guideline was focusing on sexual reproductive and maternal health.
Mrs Asala said that others include antenatal, delivery, new born care, post natal care, family planning services, and sexually transmitted diseases.
She hinted that the aim was to promote aggressive health care system, noting that the intervention was to educate more individuals on how to take care of themselves without actually going to the hospital.
According to her, the emphasis is on families, friends, relatives, and groups and we are also looking at digital platforms, health technologists, health extension workers and community pharmacists, for people to have wider access to sexual reproductive centres.
The director said they expected states to be fully in line with the federal ministry of health’s goal of expanding access to health care throughout the states.
She urged the states to create enabling environment that would support the creation of the self care services and commodities.
