Society for family Health, Integrated Project holds Stakeholders meeting.
By Habiba Etsu.
Society for Family Health in collaboration with Integrate Project have organized a high level stakeholders meeting .
The meeting is aimed at Integrating the State into the Integrate “E” Project and also updating on the progress so far.
Additionally, the meeting sought to enable sustainability and Scale Up in the State’s activities by building capacity for community pharmacists and patent medicine vendors, so as to enable them offer quality family planning services and Public Health Care Services which involves quality malaria treatment, pneumonia, diarrhea and tuberculosis in the community.
The meeting which took place at Haske hotel, Minna recently, had in attendance stakeholders drawn from the Niger State Ministry Of Primary HealthCare, Ministry of Secondary and Tertiary Health Services, Ministry for Women Affairs, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA),. NAFDAC, and the Police.
Speaking in an interview, the State Programme Manager for Integrate “E”, Samuel Oliva Abel said the outcome of the Stakeholders’ Engagement clearly indicates that the Niger State Government is interested in the project, which serves as a Pilot Study, adding that there is a possibility of Scale Up in the near future.
Mr Samuel Abel said the Integrate ‘E’ Project has successfully trained 40 community pharmacists in administering family planning methods to patients and intends to train 300 Patent Medicine Vendors, out which 114 have been trained so far
The Programme Manager then added that with more Stakeholders and Community Engagement, the outcome of 2024 will be tremendous.
Earlier in his goodwill message, the Permanent Secretary Niger State Ministry of Primary Health Care, Dr Abdullahi Imam said the State Government is in full support of the Integrate ‘E’ Project and commends their efforts to train people, so as to realise the goal of task shifting and task sharing of services to community Pharmacists and Patent Medicine Vendors. Dr Abdullahi Imam then added that the fact that there has been shortage of available trained hands in delivering quality health care services in the rural areas, has been quite challenging.
In an overview of Integrate E project, the Director Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria Foundation, Pharmacist Munir Elenu said Integrate E project seeks to ensure that people in the hinterland get quality access to health care services, hence the need to train private medicine vendors and Community Pharmacists to ensure quality health service delivery.
Stakeholders at the meeting suggested that mapping, registration and training must be done for Pharmacists in the country, while trained Pharmacists be given special emblems and logos for easy identification and to avoid harassment from drug Law Enforcement Agents. Furthermore, it was suggested that Interpersonal Communication agents be recruited, to ensure that adequate information and data is obtained and made available whenever necessary.
