By Kazeem Akolawole
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has disclosed that only 463 Primary Healthcare Centers have required 4 per facility Skilled Birth Attendants (SBA).
The Executive Director, NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib at a press conference in Abuja also said, aside from the gross inadequacy, there is the problem of unequal distribution of available SBAs in the PHC facilities.
to address these challenges, Shuaib said the agency has come up with an innovation called Community-based Health Research, Innovative-training and Services Program (CRISP), to leverage the rural posting of health workers, explained further that CRISP is a partnership between the Teaching Hospitals, Federal Medical Centers, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, State Primary Health Care Boards, Local Government Health Authorities and the communities to support primary health care development.
He noted that the intervention specifically focuses on increasing, retaining and improving the quality, adequacy, competency, and distribution of a committed multidisciplinary primary health care workforce that includes facility outreach and community-based health workers supported through effective management supervision and appropriate compensation.
He maintained that CRISP aims to leverage the rural posting of Resident Doctors from teaching hospitals to boost and guarantee the quality of care at the PHC level through their active involvement in primary health service delivery.
“This is targeted at improving reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, amongst other health services within the benefiting communities.
“Human Resources for Health (HRH), particularly skilled birth attendants, such as medical doctors, midwives, nurses, and Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) that have been trained on how to manage emergencies would be recruited and deployed to priority PHC facilities across the country,” he added.
