LG Chairmen truncates immunization programme in Enugu

Enugu state government may not after all achieve her set goal in the development of Child health programme if she continues to pay money ment for National programme on Immunization into local government accounts. The issues concerning health programmes of mother and child should not be politicised.

Local government Chairmen should see every health programme as their own programmes and not only that of the state government or United Childrens Fund and World health organisations who are partners that contributes to ensure that such programme successeds in every part of the country.

The observation of BusinessDay one of the media monitors of the 2016 Maternal Newborn and Child Health Week (MNCHW) in Enugu west senatorial district observed that Local government Chairmen did not fully key into the programme as they should which lead to poor Funding of the programme.

It was revealed that the state ministry of Health paid money into the local government account but the money was not released to the Health workers incharge of the programme, because of this in all the Local government in the zone none of them did flagged off the programme, except few no banners were in place, the town announcers were not adequately morbilized  to announce the programme is all the communities.

At the Parklane Hospital when the state governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi Flagged off the programme he called on the Local government Caretaker Chairmen to key into the programme and ensure that Maternal, Newborn and Child Health are properly taken care off. He used the occasion to announced the governments plan to make primary health care in the state a priority despite the economic situation.

The maternal, Newborn and Child Health week is a yearly programme supported by UNICEF, WHO and other partners, where the following interventions like Immunization, Nutrition,Health Education, Safe Motherhood, Birth Registration and Malaria which included Nets and other Anti- Malaria services are made available for pregnant women and Children under five years.

MNCHW is a facility based where pregnant women and children under five are expected to go to health facilities for the health services. It was also observed that the health workers are ready to do the work considering the fact that those children are their children but the challenge was that some of the interventions were not sufficient in most of the health facilities. Some of those intervention that were not sufficient includes De-worming tablets, Fesolato, Net and SP.
In Oji-River with 38 health facilities where a tin of De-morming was suppose to be given to each facility,but because it was not sufficient 105 tables was given to each facility. Interventions like SP and Insecticide treated Nets were not  available at all. It was the same situation in Udi in terms of insufficient interventions. Despite the issue of insufficient intervention, funding and logistic.  Awgu  and Aniniri are also faced with the challenges of preservation of vaccines as a result of no power supply.

However in the 28 facilities in Awgu, some interventions like Vitamin A, vaccines were said to be enough. Some of the officials of the local government agreed that fund was paid into their account but could not affect payment because it came very late but promised to release it later after the programme, which was likely to defeat the purpose for which it was meant.

In view of the poor funding and participation of the local government chairmen in the programme some of the participants who spoke to BusinessDay suggested organising workshops for LGA chairmen on the important of the Immunization programmes to the society.