Abah Felicity 
ONDO, Nigeria – The Ondo State Government has partnered with the Lifespring Development Foundation (LSDF) to improve the management of healthcare commodities and reduce drug shortages, overstocking and wastage across public health facilities.
The State Reproductive Health Coordinator and Deputy Director of Family Health in the Ministry of Health, Dr Toyin Adeyalo-Ogundare, disclosed this during a two-day training on commodity forecasting and quantification for health workers on Friday.
She said the partnership began earlier in the year under the Federal Government’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Project, with Ondo among the benefiting states.
The programme currently covers Ondo West, Ese Odo and Ifedore Local Government Areas.
Adeyalo-Ogundare said the training, organised by LSDF in collaboration with the ministry’s Logistics Management Unit, was designed to improve the capacity of health workers responsible for forecasting and managing reproductive, maternal and child health commodities.
This, she said, would help prevent essential commodities from running out before new supplies arrive while also reducing the risk of medicines and other health products expiring before they are used.
“Proper forecasting” allows health facilities to use previous consumption and service data to estimate future needs, Adeyalo-Ogundare explained.
She said officials would also analyse facility-level data to understand consumption patterns for different family planning commodities and investigate unusually high or low usage.
The information, she added, would help the government make more informed decisions on procurement and distribution.
Also speaking, LSDF State Team Lead, Mercy Okeyode, said the training was aimed at strengthening the health system by improving the skills of personnel responsible for managing reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health commodities.
Okeyode said the programme would build on previous investments in healthcare worker training and ensure that essential commodities reached facilities where they were most needed.
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Korede Abdullah 
