By Mohammad Tijjani
Kaduna – The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar , on Tuesday tasked government at all levels on adequate construction and equipping of health facilities to help in effective healthcare delivery.The Sultan made the call while declaring open the first quarter review meeting of the Northern Traditional Leaders Committee (NTLC) on Primary Health Care, which centered on an update on Kaduna State.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the major focus of the meeting was to receive an update on Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) initiative launched by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.The CHIPS’ initiative is aimed at using community based women to improve maternal and child health care, part of which includes educating women on importance of visiting health facilities when the need arises in order to avert deaths from preventable diseases.Abubakar, who decried the deplorable status of health care facilities in the country said, “I will like us to talk about the position of our healthcare facilities across the towns and villages.“You can’t come around with such programmes, (CHIPS) advocating about going to clinics for ante natal and you don’t have the clinics. There are so many buildings across the villages in the name of clinics, but there are no nurses, nothing.“So, we will want to see states and Federal Government embarking on construction and equipping of full healthcare facilities across the villages and towns where we have large population of our people,” he said.He assured them that traditional leaders in the North would do everything humanly possible to ensuring that new born children and their mothers live healthy.He said provision for manpower, drugs and shelters are very paramount in ensuring adequate and effective healthcare delivery.He assured Nigerians that, “we will not relent until we have a total and healthier society, because without a healthy society you can do anything, so health is very important to all our people.“We have talked about polio, but their are also killer diseases and other diseases ravaging our communities, so it is our responsibility to continue this serious work in a much more stronger capacity.”The Sultan, who admitted that the traditional leaders in the past 10 years had recorded tremendous success in the Polio eradication programme, however, noted that the disease was not the only health challenge bedeviling the country.“We also have so many other diseases and one of them is hunger.“We will continue to work strongly with stakeholders and government at all levels until we achieve total health coverage in all our communities across the Northern states in particular,” he said.Earlier, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, said the meeting was to focus on how the traditional rulers can use their unique positions, as custodians of heritage and culture to mobilise people in communities for improved Primary Health Care, especially, on CHIPS.Shuaib said the traditional leaders had recorded success in polio eradication programme and such success could be replicated in the CHIPS’ initiative.According to him, the point to note is how they have been able to provide leadership in all ramifications toward polio eradication, especially . as they have assisted in casting away doubts on polio vaccines and immunisation.“When community members saw their leaders advocating for immunisation and vaccines, they came out and started receiving it. As you can see, we are just five months away from been declared a polio free nation. This is significant,” he said.He added that the first quarter meeting was aimed at expanding the horizon of the traditional leaders in terms of what they would be engaging in.“Moving forward, they will be taking up the role President Buhari asked them to take —which is providing leadership around CHIPS’ programme.“President Buhari has put in place and laid a solid foundation for a day in future where no Nigerian will be denied access to health care because they can’t afford it,” Shuaib said. (NAN)