BYCHIOMAOBINNA
Everyone deserves equal access to health care and other social amenities. But how true is the situation in Nigeria? This is a million-dollar question begging for an answer.

Today in Nigeria, many families living in rural areas are certified poor people. Many struggle to survive with less access to poverty – support systems that are often based in the urban areas.  Unfortunately, one of the most significant challenges these families often face is access to affordable health care. A new report by the United State Department of Health and Human Services notes that 12 per cent of those in urban areas live in poverty, while 15 per cent of rural dwellers live below the poverty line.

Many governments have come up with various health policies to match the disparity with little or no effect on the wellbeing of the people.

However, the Lagos State government is going a step further towards addressing bottlenecks hindering effective healthcare delivery at the Local Government level.

The  Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, is of the view that the essence of transferring Primary Health Care (PHC) to the Local Government is to make the management of health services more effective and closer to the grassroots.

In a media parley last week in Lagos, Idris  said the move became necessary following reports of misconduct contrary to the health policies of the state government.

“We have resolved to address this issue seriously this year. Although we have challenges of limited resources as the demand for services are high, but that does not give anybody right to collect money from patients under the free health programme of the state. Government is doing everything possible to ensure that these policies are implemented.”

He argued that if the problems at the Primary Healthcare delivery systems are not addressed efforts by the state government would be useless.

As part of its focus in  2011, he said the State government is determined to correct lapses in regulation and monitoring of hospital services. “We are planning to have at least one hospital in each Local Government and a Primary Healthcare centre in each community in the state”.

Reeling out programmes for the year, Idris also announced that the state government is set to establish a school of mortuary sciences in collaboration with a US-based partner as part of efforts to address problems of mortuary services in the state.

An anti-smoking campaign  plus hand washing and mental education exercise has been earmarked for addition to the existing health education and preventive programme of the state.