LASG To Upgrade Primary, Secondary Health Facilities

NAN 

The Lagos State Government says it will soon embark on the renovation of its primary and secondary health facilities to provide quality services and decongest the tertiary health facility.

The State’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said this on Tuesday in Ikeja while giving account of the activities in the health sector in the last one year.

He said that with the renovation, patients that could be appropriately managed at lower levels of care would not need to go to the tertiary health facility.

“We are not unaware of the state of our severely overstretched secondary care facilities.

“We are currently doing assessment of all those facilities, especially at the primary and secondary levels, and the renovation process will be done in phases for repairs,” Idris said.

He said that the burden on the state’s hospitals, especially the Mother and Child Centres (MCCs), was huge with patients coming in from neighbouring states to access services.

Idris said that the Ministry had continued to execute programmes with primary objectives of prevention, detection and treatment of diseases with public health significance such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, Ebola Virus Disease, tuberculosis, among others.

The commissioner said that the current prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS in the state was 4.1 per cent as against 5.5 per cent.

He said that in the period under review, 645,301 clients were counseled and tested across the state for HIV/AIDS while 47,393 clients were actively receiving free anti-retroviral drugs.

Idris said that the Ministry was exploring opportunities of partnering with Global Fund Initiative to boost financial resources available for use.

He said that 13,204 clients were screened in the diabetes and hypertension programme, with 3,181 and 518 having positive history of hypertension and diabetes respectively.

The commissioner said that 2,568 and 186 clients had familial history of hypertension and diabetes respectively.

Idris said that 1,011 women were screened for cervical cancer, 1,201 for breast cancer and 201 men for prostate cancer.

He said that 52 patients were operated upon for limb deformity while 21 were referred for physiotherapy.

According to the commissioner, the Ministry, in the next one year, will specifically target the issue of quality in all its dimensions.

He said it would also strengthen the delivery system and scale up health promotion and disease prevention activities. (NAN)