Recently, the Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency, CRSPHCDA, has been hit with drug shortages across the 18 LGAs of the state but that poise has been dealt with as the Director General (DG), Dr. Betta Edu says a new drug revolvement strategy has been rolled out to bridge the gap of drugs stock-out faced by some primary healthcare centers across the State.
She disclosed that the state has made available, Zinc ORS drugs for diarrhoea as well as other basic life saving drugs to affected Primary Healthcare Centers across the state.
“We are doing this through the concerted effort of government and some partners, we are putting in place a sustainable, transparent and accountable logistic strategy to ensure we do not have drug stock-out in any Primary Health Care facility, especially facilities in very remote areas” Betta said.
Also, the Director Primary Healthcare in the agency, Dr Ana Onebiene said the main objective of the meeting is to strengthen the State’s Essential Medicine Coordinating Mechanism under the current leadership in the state’s health sector. He posited that the meeting also aimed at receiving updates on activities of partners in health facilities across the state as well as progress made in boosting the essential medicine program.
Dr. Ojo Muyiwa, the representative of the World Health Organisation, WHO, said the meeting will help them share the plans of the agency alongside other partners for effective implementation and closing of gap in the Essential Medicine program.
In a similar vein, Dr. Eyo Nsa of the Cross River State Ministry of Health said the increase in coordination and ownership of the Essential Medicines program delivery will help the state develop a strong coordination mechanism largely through the partners’ forum and also build capacity of state officials to effectively manage and align multiple stakeholders and programmes.
The meeting which began immediately after the CRSPHCDA Partners monthly meeting, was facilitated by Clinton Health Access Initiative and had representatives from the state’s health ministry, Dr. Thompson Igbu and Dr. Muyiwa Ojo of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Henry Ayuk of FHI 360, DR. Ikpeme of EUSIGN, reps from Chemonics, Society for family health, Pathfinders International, NAFDAC, UNICEF, NPHCDA amongst others.
