Bukola Afeni
The Federal Government through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), has launched the Community-Based Health Research Innovative Training and Services Programme (CRISP).
The program is meant to address the unequal distribution of skilled health workers among Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities across the country.
Speaking at the launch in Abuja, Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen said the initiative is timely and quite innovative.
” No health facility can function properly without adequate skilled workers. There is no better way to tackle the challenges of healthcare delivery in Nigeria than to close the gaps in the equitable availability of skilled health workers in PHC facilities.
“I am aware that Nigeria makes up only 2 percent of the world population but accounts for 14 percent of the world’s maternal death burden. Similarly, our country loses 2,500 children under the age of 5 every day due to largely preventable causes, including the lack of services that skilled birth attendants could provide.
” It is of interest that 80 percent of these death burdens occur in the primary health care and community levels. This justifies the need for urgent actions to be taken to implement the CRISP to address this situation”, he said.
The Vice president noted that the Federal government is passionate about interventions that would help to improve the health and well-being of the Nigerian people.
“I do not doubt the capacity of the Executive Director of, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib and his team. We are working in partnership with the academia and teaching hospital which will implement and get the desired result from the initiative.
“I believe that effective implementation of this initiative will help to fast track the attainment of universal health coverage, as well as a reduction in preventable maternal and child mortalities in Nigeria”, he said.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, analyzed the challenges of gross inadequacy and inequity in the availability of human resources for health, especially skilled birth attendants trained in Modified Life-Saving Skills across primary healthcare facilities.
Ehanire explained that the initiative was one of the programmatic ways of achieving the first of the interrelated four-point agenda on PHC transformation in the country.
“Working in primary health care centres has remained unattractive to most of our skilled workers who prefer to provide services in the urban settings. So, aside from the problems of gross inadequacy and inequitable distribution of our skilled healthcare workers, we are also facing the problem of their detrition from the PHC facilities. With this kind of situation, no matter how much you invest in building and equipping a health care facility, if there are no skilled workers to provide the needed services, it is as good as there are no health care services for the people”, he said.
Dr Osagie recalled that to address the challenges in the health sector, the federal government, in March 2022, on the initiative of NPHCDA, had a summit on re-imagining PHC in Nigeria during which they presented a 4-point agenda for PHC transformation
He explained that the agenda focused on improving access to service delivery through PHC revitalization.
” One of the strategic pillars for achieving this is ensuring the adequacy, competency, and distribution of a committed multidisciplinary primary health care workforce, supported through effective management, and supervision within an enabling environment.
“I am happy to inform you that the CRISP initiative we are launching today, is one of our programmatic ways of achieving the first of our interrelated 4-point agenda on PHC transformation in Nigeria.
He noted that the initiative will leverage the countries teaching hospitals and Federal Medical Centres in all the states of the federation to pull together skilled healthcare workers to the primary healthcare centres in communities where they will routinely provide services and mentorship, as well as build the capacity of the PHC workers.
The Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib explained that the number one problem with primary health care in Nigeria is inadequate primary healthcare workers.
”So what we are doing today is to launch a scheme whereby resident doctors from tertiary institutions, like teaching hospitals, and medical centres will adopt the Primary Health Care Centre.
“They will go there to provide practice, to do research. We have put together this program so that we can support the teaching hospitals and medical centres to consistently deploy resident doctors to the primary healthcare centres so that they can see patients.
“We are looking at institutions because of the quality of the work that is going to be provided at the Primary Health Care Centre, then we can begin to see a solution whereby there is a net gain”.
According to him, the agency is also using the opportunity to recruit additional nurses, and midwives that are very critical for making sure that pregnancy and childbirth are safe in collaboration with the National Youth Service Corp.
“(NYSC) doctors will be preferentially deployed to the primary health care centres to again have better quality in terms of human resources and workforce that is available.
“So we are now having brain gain in the primary health care centres, rather than a brain drain. We are providing the right environment for medical doctors and giving them the right kinds of incentives to do their work. We feel that we are also helping in reducing brain drain out of the country”. He added.
The World Health Organization Country Representative, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, said that the health body will provide technical support to CRISP.
“We will work with you to develop strategies to improve the performance and retention of Health workers in rural and remote areas”, he said.
The UNICEF Chief of Health in Nigeria, Dr Eduardo Celades, said that CRISP represents a significant step in addressing an evident shortage of skilled human resources.
” We are fully committed to the strategy and will commit resources to expand the number of midwives, nurses and improve maternal and child health services in the country.
“We are excited that the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the NPHCDA and in collaboration with Teaching Hospitals, is leading this flagship initiative.” He added.
CRISP is a partnership between the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the tertiary teaching hospitals, the Federal Medical Centres, the State Primary Health Care Boards, Local Government Areas and the communities to support PHC development.
