The newly inaugurated board of the FCT Primary Health Care Development Board (PHCDB) has pledged to work assiduously towards the entrenchment of quality health care delivery system in primary health care facilities in the territory.
This is just as it said it would work in collaboration with the area council chairmen to ensure that all moribund primary health care centres in the territory are resuscitated, while more would be built to address the shortfall in the sub-sector.
Chairman of the board, Altine Kagigi, made the pledge at the inaugural meeting of the board, held at the PHCDB office in Area 3, Garki.
He decried that only 33 out of the existing 216 primary health care centres in the FCT were working according to World Health Organisation (WHO) minimum requirement.
Kagigi expressed happiness with the composition of the board, saying its membership which was cut across all relevant stakeholders was a pointer to the fact that the FCT administration was poised to bring about he needed interventions in primary health care delivery, promising that the board would deliver on its mandate.
The chairman warned staff members of PHCDB to work hard and display the highest level of professionalism in their various departments, stressing that it would no longer be business as usual and staff found wanting would be disciplined.
In his presentation at the meeting, the Executive Secretary, PHCDB, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, informed that while 33 primary health care centres in the territory were adequately staffed, 158 were poorly staffed while 33 had no staff.
He further stated that the FCT required 446 area council owned primary health care centres but had only 216 out of which only 191 were functional.
Rilwan appealed to the board to work towards ensuring that the mandate, vision and mission of PHCDB as well as its five-year strategic plan is met on schedule.
Members of the 13 man board include chairman of the six area councils in FCT, the executive secretary, PHCDB, the general manager, FCT Hospitals Management Board and representative of the private health sector among others.
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