NMA Flays Poor Health Facilities In Abia

The Abia chapter of Nige

ria Medical Association (NMA), has expressed concern over the dilapidated health facilities in the state, and called for urgent reforms in the sector.

Our correspondent reports that the state of health facilities was at the front burner of discussion on Monday in Umuahia at the commencement of the association’s 2011 Physicians Week, with the theme: “Anti-Microbial Resistance: No Remedy Today, No Cure Tomorrow.”

Dr Kinsley Enweremadu, the state NMA Chairman, said the state of the health sector, especially at the primary level, was critical and needed urgent steps to get it back on track.

He noted with regret, the dearth of manpower at both the primary and secondary levels of the sector, which he said would make nonsense of any facility put in place by government.

Enweremadu urged government to adopt a more serious approach to the health conditions of the rural populace, whom he said had long been neglected.

He said there was a limit to what other health workers could do without having trained medical doctors, and urged government to deploy doctors to rural areas.

“The NMA Committee on Rural Health Outreach will partner with the Ministry of Health and medical officers in making the reform agenda in the state a success.”

Enweremadu said government had not shown any form of sincerity in the agreement it reached with NMA on the implementation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS).

He said Abia was the only state where workers did not go on strike because of the CONMESS, noting that although government promised to implement it from April, it had yet to do so.

The chairman urged government to go ahead and implement the new structure in October.

Dr Ugochukwu Onyeonoru, a Consultant in Public Health at the Federal Medical Centre, also said the state government had not taken the health conditions of the rural people serious, adding that there was need to show more concern.

He said a recent survey conducted in the state by an NGO in the health sector showed that there was a ratio of between one and five doctors to 10,000 patients in the state.

Onyeonoru said the condition was more pathetic, because the state had not formally employed any medical doctor since its creation in 1991.

Dr Okechukwu Ogah, the Commissioner for Health, said the health sector needed total reforms to bring it to modern standard.

He said the moves had been initiated, and stressed the need for the state to have more specialists in its health care system.