Abia State Government has concluded plans to disburse N109, 500,000.00 to the 292 ward health centres in the state.
In a meeting with the Ward Development Committee Chairmen and Officers In charge of Health facilities in the state, the Executive Secretary, Abia State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Chinagozi Adindu said each of the 292 health centres will receive N375, 000.00 each “for them to give the health facilities a face lift and buy essential drugs and some other important things”.
According to Dr. Adindu, “The essence of the meeting was to let them know that the state governor has given us a marching order that we disburse money to them” adding that the governor gave the agency the money to take care of their facilities.
The programme which the governor attracted to the state and called Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, had last year, disbursed the first tranche to the health centres, adding “Now, we are giving them another tranche”.
However, Dr. Adindu regretted “Last time, we didn’t like what happened as they did not use it the way it was structured. We disbursed to all the health facilities, N601,000 for each facility by the 292 ward health centres.
“We have equally received approval to disburse another money to all the 292 ward health centres in the state.
“So, we decided to bring them together to give them the cheering news and to caution them to make good use of the money so that Abians can benefit from this laudable programee.
He said “The essence of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund programme is to ensure that people will walk into the health facilities and access medicare without paying anything. Their bills will be given to the health insurance agency that will now pay. We want a situation where pregnant women, nursing mothers, elderly people and kids will walk into the health centre with their identity card and they will receive attention and then go home without paying. Government will take care of everything”. He charged the Officers in Charge, OIC to comply with the protocols as “we have a work plan that we approved for them and they should make sure that the money is judiciously used, buy drugs and make sure that people receive medicare, quality health services without pay”.
