Mrs Etem Edet, the Principal, Army Day Secondary School, Eburutu Barracks, Calabar, has commended Child Care and Adult Protection Initiative (CCAPI) an NGO, for donating a sick bay for first aid treatment to the school.

Edet made the commendation at the launch of the facility on Wednesday at the school compound in Calabar.

She described the gesture as “a big relief to the school authority”, adding that it was the first time an organisation was making such contribution to the school.

She said “I feel excited and highly elated for this and I commend CCAPI for the gesture.”

The principal promised to ensure proper maintenance and utilisation of the sick bay
for the benefit of teachers and students.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Inyang Asibong, said the initiative by the CCAPI was commendable and promised that the state government would do everything possible to support it.

Asibong, who was represented by Dr Itam Essien, the Director of Medical and Dental Health in the ministry, called for public sector involvement in the provision of healthcare in the state.

She said “we need public sector participation in our efforts to provide adequate healthcare
delivery to the people.”

The Executive Director of CCAPI, Ms Evelyn Oti, said the organisation was moved by the lack of awareness on school health in the state.

She said CCAPI started its activities in 2014 with sensitisation in public schools, but later discovered that there was no first aid equipment in any of the public schools visited, hence the need to provide sick bay.

She added that CCAPI spent about N1 million on sensitisation and provision of sick bays to some public schools across the state.

She explained that “the objective of our organisation is basically to promote school health through advocacy and sensitisation.

“The idea of providing sick bays for first aid treatment in schools came after we discovered that none of the schools visited had the equipment.

“We worked in a number of schools and to our greatest surprise, we discovered that many schools did not know anything about first aid treatment.”

She, however, said paucity of fund was the organisation’s biggest challenge and solicited the support of the state government and donor agencies.

She said “our greatest challenge now is funding. Initially, we thought we could just go round some schools and sensitise them on school health.

“But we have since discovered that we need to do more than that, and that is why we are providing sick bay.

“We need financial support from government and donor agencies to enable us to reach more schools in the 18 local government areas of Cross River.”

NAN