By Haruna Gimba
The Kaduna State Ministry of Health and Human Services has pledged to interact quarterly with the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the media to discuss current health status in the state.
The state Commissioner of Health, Dr Paul Manya Dogo, stated this during the first quarterly interactive forum. “#OpenKDSMoH for Health Sector Performance Review,” held in Kaduna.
He said the state have been doing that since 2016 with the support of the Community Health and Research Initiative (CHR) and Kaduna State MNCH Accountability Mechanism (KADMAM).
“I want to first of all appreciate very deeply CHR for making this program a reality since inception. We thank our much respected journalists that report on health matters with whom we have worked together. We thanked them for their support in the dissemination of health programmers to our people.
“The allocation of this administration indicated that its goal was to invest on health to ensure resident of the state are healthy. As such, the allocation to the health sector has increased from 7.5 per cent in 2016 to 11.5 per cent in 2017 and 16 per cent in 2018, we have not only met but exceed the Abuja declaration of 15 per cent,” the commissioner said.
Dr Dogo added that the state have maintained a polio free status since November 2012, “we are still working hard to strengthen Routine Immunization, in addition to investing heavily in healthcare to ensure a sustainable health system.”
“As you are aware the 1, 240 newly recruited medical professionals have been deployed and it has improved the human resources situation of our general hospitals and better quality of services,” he said.
The commissioner added that a number of general hospitals across the State are also receiving interventions to enable then provide better healthcare to patients especially those referred from the various Primary Health Centres.
