…achieving health promotion involves multi multi-sectoral approach – Clina Lancet  

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has said that there cannot be adequate health promotion unless we have the diagnostic.

Also, the Managing Director of the leading Pathology Laboratory, Clina Lancet, Dr. Olayemi Dawodu, added that to achieve health promotion, it is not only the healthcare sector that is involved, it involves a multi-sectoral approach to it.

They said these at the 7th Annual Continuing Medical Education, CME organized by Clina Lancet Laboratories, Nigeria with the theme: “Health Promotion: An Effective Tool for Global Health” held in Lagos.

Abayomi who was represented by Chairperson, Lagos State Health Service Commission, Dr. Atinuke Onayiga, said: “There cannot be an adequate health promotion unless we have the diagnostic. Major players in diagnostics are key to having health promotion and even sustaining it, because they are coming on preventive levels.

“Nowadays, people want to even know about their health status, even before disease comes in. Even when they periodically check themselves, they still want to know their status, to be able to sustain and maintain that good health that they have”, she said.  

Earlier in her welcome address, Dawodu said that the CME was an initiative that was developed to help interact with different stakeholders, imbibe knowledge to the stakeholders in the healthcare sector and to drive important practicable steps that can be implemented within the health sector.

She said: “Using health promotion as a global tool is very important to Clina Lacet because health education is one of the pillars that you use for health promotion. It is a multifaceted approach to achieving universal healthcare coverage and strengthening the healthcare system.

“As an organization, our mission is to impact positively on communities that we work in, one of the ways to do that is to gather a multisectoral audience every year and focus on topical issues. We understand that to achieve health promotion, it is not only the healthcare sector that is involved. It involves a multisectoral approach to it”, she said. 

In his keynote address, Chief Executive Officer of Lilly Hospitals, Dr. Austin Okogun, said that health promotion addresses areas that would help in preventing the spread of disease and also empower people to maintain healthy lifestyles, adding that there have been a lot of advancements that have helped in finding out the cause of the disease and helping to educate people on how to prevent the disease.

Speaking on reaching the grassroots in terms of health promotion, Okogun said: “Because primary care is mostly controlled by government, not so many private individuals are investing in primary healthcare. Unfortunately, most of our primary care centres are dysfunctional, they are poorly resourced. In the rural areas where they are located, access to the location is very poor because of poor infrastructure. 

“The uptake of primary healthcare services is low which is why the impact is also very low.  I think that the private sector partnering with government through various people can help to make these centres more effective in health promotion activities.

“There are opportunities for investment in primary healthcare and preventive care. We are not getting the model right because most of us are from private organizations. My thoughts are that we need to review our value position, we need to review how we can extract value from primary and preventive care,” he said.