The people of Otutu community in Okene local government area of the state has appealed to Kogi state government to provide a Primary Health Care centre in the community that will cater for their health related issues.
The community made the appeal during a town hall meeting organized by a non-governmental organization, Connected Development (CODE), with members of the community on the Covid19 Transparency and Accountability (CTAP).
The CTAP project is basically meant to track the state of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and vaccination distribution in Nigeria.
The Otutu community leader, Yaqub Isaq-Awihi said the community is in dire need of a health centres, as members of the community do treck some kilometers to the council headquarters before they can access medical care.
Yaqub said since the withdrawal of medical personnel from the building provided by the community for such purpose some years back, the community has grappled with such challenges in accessing medical care.
He said the community is ready to provide a building for a startup of such health centre pending when the state government could provide a befitting structure for such functions.
He said though there is a private health centres in the community, but the complexity and intriques sorrounding the centre has made it unaccessible for the community.
Earlier, the State Focal Person for the CODE CTAP program, Mr. Umar DanAsebe Muhammed said the purpose of the visit is to track and verify the state of primary health centres institutions across the state as well as see to the distribution of covid19 vaccines through those centres.
He said the program will help put government on their toes on the need to see that money budgeted and release for construction of primary health care service and covid19 vaccination are expended in the right direction.
Mr. Umar said the visit will also help to get committment from the local and government personnel in thehealth sector to be alive to their duties and be committed in providing the best service delivery to the rural people.
“We want to get answer as to weather the funds and infrastructure that have been donated to communities in state, particularly at the grassroots level actually got to the community.”
According to Umar, the group monitors donations for low-income communities, and for transparency, they contact those communities to see if such infrastructure or funds are utilized as claimed by the government.
“We also visit these communities in the state, based on the information we get about the state of primary health centres, so that we can be able to demand accountability from the government or agency involved. We are primarily concerned about transparency and accountability.”
