Benue governor empowers primary healthcare agency to deliver on its mandate

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has reaffirmed the commitment of his administration to strengthening healthcare delivery in the state by empowering the Benue State Primary Health Care Board to deliver on its mandate.

In a similar vein, the Governor has directed local government chairmen in the state to ensure adequate support for the immunisation campaign in their respective council areas.

Governor Ortom disclosed this on Monday, November 23, 2020 at the flag off of this year’s Massive Yellow Fever Vaccination campaign in the state at the IBB Square Makurdi.

He said part of his government’s commitment in improving the health status of the populace is the deliberate step taken to empower the Benue State Primary Health Care Board to “perform it’s roles and effectively promote better health outcomes.”

To this end, he said the state government has released its share of the counterpart funds to the primary health care agency to get rid of the Yellow Fever in the state.

To further demonstrate the commitment of government to health matters, especially primary health care which is the bedrock in the sector, Governor Ortom disclosed that the sum of 29m has been made available to complete the permanent site of the state primary healthcare board in a bid to complete the process of achieving the nine pillars of primary health care under one roof.

The Governor also directed the State Task Force on Immunisation headed by the Deputy Governor, Engr Benson Abounu to shore up its immunisation coverage of the state, saying that government would give maximum attention to traditional leaders who he said are the custodians of the programme to see that the people are immunized in their domains.

While commending frontline workers in the health sector for their commitment to eliminate other targeted diseases including Covid-19, Governor Ortom also called on stakeholders and other partners to join the state government to achieve quality campaigns to eradicate the dreaded disease.

Supervising Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr Godwin Oyiwona in his speech stated that the current vaccination which is to last for ten days in the state targets 4.7 million according to the World Health Organisation guidelines for the implementation of the mass campaigns in the context of Covid-19 pandemic.

Executive Secretary of the Primary Health Care Board, Dr Bem Ageda in his keynote address, commended the state Governor for the huge resources he has committed to ensuring the full operations of the agency to deliver on its core mandate despite the dwindling resources.

Dr Ageda announced that the board had raised 1,586 vaccination teams to cover four million people in 243 wards of the state.

Donor partners present at the occasion applauded efforts by the Benue State Government in tackling the challenging health issues in the state and called for improvement by recruiting more health workers to boost