...Provides essential services
From Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki
The United States Agency for International Development - Integrated Health Program (USAID-IHP), on Wednesday, carried out free health outreach to the Inyimagu Ameka Primary Health Centre in Ekpelu Ward, Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.
Interacting with Journalists, the Data Analyst with the USAID-IHP in Ebonyi State, Mr Ferdinand Eke, said the agency chose to offer free medical care and treatment to the community people during the Open Maternity Day (OMD) at the PHC today for health motives and improvement.
Mr Eke said that the USAID-IHP targeted to attend to the pregnant mothers and children under five years in the area by providing them with essential health services during the Open Maternity Day at the centre.
"We want to seize this opportunity of the August period to provide the service to them because there are so many of them that don't have the strength to take care of themselves.
"Some of them don't even have the resources to access quality health services, and that's why we are organizing this one-day open maternity in this facility," he explained.
He said the agency had offered different health services, "and in the child care unit, vitamin C was given to children, while some of them, were prescribed de-warming tablets; checked malnutrition - 'the prevalent ailment associated with the kids in the area, before given them treatment and counselling where necessary."
The community women also received AMC services at the maternal health unit.
According to Eke, the health workers checked the urine of the mothers and offered other AMC-related services to them, to ensure their well beings and that of their babies during the program.
On family planning, the USAID-IHP Data Analyst uncovered that Ebonyi has topped other states in southeastern Nigeria, as it allegedly recorded the highest rate of women who do not have access to the planning family services.
"We have family planning, and most of us know that Ebonyi State is topping when you come to the rate of women who don't have access to these family planning services in Southeastern Nigeria," he hinted.
Eke who noted that the agency has begun providing family planning services to the mothers of child-bearing age, upheld that, "women in Ebonyi state have the least access to uptake to family planning services, which is six per cent, according to the Nigeria Demographic Survey of 2018, this was the most recent demographic survey conducted in the country."
He noted that the elderly ones were not left out during the program, as in his words, they were also provided free health services to them by the USAID-IHP team.
"On this open maternity day, we have doctors that are on grounds who provide services to the elderly people, they check their BP (Blood Pressure) because most the old people don't know their BP. There was a man who checked his BP and his BP was over 200, he wasn't aware of this but by so doing, he has seen the need to regulate his BP."
He equally identified malnutrition and malaria as the most prevalent ailment in the area.
He, however, urged the people to continue to come to the facility for health care and treatment, while expressing happiness over their large turnout for the program.
Also, the Officer-in-charge of the Inyimagu Ameka PHC, Uzoamaka Mgbada, while commending the USAID-IHP, said the turnout of the community people for the open maternity day was encouraging and urged them to sustain the tempo.
She said, with the open maternity day, pregnant mothers, children under five years and the aged people in the community would be coming to patronize the facility.
She described the free medication by the USAID-IHP as an added advantage to community people, noting that "the facility provides the drugs, whether for a pregnant mother, children under five, hypertensive health problems, diabetics, and other ones."
He affirmed that there was no access to the family planning services by the women, but the facility began to record an improvement, through free health education, sensitization and advocacy visits to different churches, schools, and women's meetings in collaboration with the stakeholders from the area.
Mrs Kate Okobe used the opportunity to sensitize the people on the need to always visit the Primary Health Centres in the area to receive treatment, urging the women still of childbearing age to adopt family planning and child spacing culture of the two years and above.
Some beneficiaries of the program, Mrs Uche Ucha, Mr Joseph Igwe, and Mrs Stellar Usulor, among others, thanked the USAID-IHP team and assured of utilising the medical recommendations by the health workers during the event to have sound health.
