A foremost community leader in Okpanam, Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, Chief Felix Okafor has described efforts of a Civil Society Organization on Malaria Control, Immunization and Nutrition (ACOMIN) to drive community support for public healthcare centres as strategic approach to improving healthcare service delivery.
Chief Okafor, who is the Ikejani of Okpanam community, stated this when the State Chairman of ACOMIN, Pastor Greg Sifo led his team on an advocacy visit to the community.
He commended ACOMIN for its determination to strengthen the two public healthcare centres in the community and called on well meaning individuals in the community to embrace the gesture as well as leverage on the intervention to contribute their quota in the upliftment of the facilities.
While assuring the team on the advocacy visit of his readiness to Interface with other stakeholders in the community, especially the chairman of Okpanam community in The United States of America to see what could be done at the Ogbe Obi Quarters in Okpanam, Chief Okafor stated that there was the need to strengthen and reposition the healthcare centre to be able to provide effective healthcare services to everyone in the community.
Earlier, the State Chairman of ACOMIN, Pastor Greg Sifo explained that the advocacy carried out in 2024 by ACOMIN to the community and the chairman of Oshimili North Local Government Area contributed to the council’s intervention in the reconstruction of the healthcare centre at Obodogba Quarters.
Sifo informed the Ikejani that the Ogbe Obi healthcare centre in the community is in dire need of electricity supply and other infrastructures such as motorable roads, , potable water supply etc, to make the facility conducive for the users. He also emphasized the importance of clearing the overgrown weeds within the facility.
He urged the community to take ownership of their healthcare centres and solicited the assistance of the revered Okpanam chief to speak to his kinsmen about the Ogbe Obi healthcare facility.
On her part, a Director in the Delta State Agency for the Control of HIV and AIDS, Mrs. Grace Sifo, who was part of the advocacy team, reiterated the benefits of strengthening the PHCs in the community, particularly for the use of the pregnant women in the community.
Mrs. Sifo asserted that the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and AIDS (PMTCT) would be achieved by ensuring that babies are born without being HIV positive, even if their mothers, are HIV positive. However ,the pregnant women should adhere to the habit of taking their HIV medications as prescribed by the Doctors.
She identified insufficient test kits as one of the challenges confronting the HIV screening of pregnant women in the state, saying that there must be collaborative efforts to make Ogbe Obi healthcare facility conducive.
By Magnus Emuji
