Kaduna State Ministry of Health in collaboration with Society for Family Health (SFH) and Catholic Relief Service (CRS), say they will collectively distribute over five million insecticide treated nets to residents of the state to achieve the zero malaria campaign.

The Director, Technical and Programmes, SFH, John Ocholi, disclosed that the beneficiaries will be drawn from all the 23 Local government areas of the state.

According to him, a simultaneous household registration and distribution of nets will commence from 7th to 18th July 2022, saying households must ensure that they leave somebody at home within this period to collect the nets.

John said, mass campaign will be led by the state Ministry of Health and Kaduna state Primary Health Care Development Agency (KSPHCDA), with the technical support of the Society for Family Health.

The state health educator, Kaduna state Ministry of Health, Maryam Kure, urged journalists to give the necessary coverage for the realization of the zero malaria campaign in Kaduna.

She explained that the media parley was to educate journalists so they can enlighten residents on the campaign against malaria.

Kure assured that the distribution of nets will be done on door to door basis across all the 23 LGAs of the state.

Enugu State Government says it has reached a collaborative agreement with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) for the upgrade of the State Medical Diagnostic Centre, Enugu for the treatment of cancer.

This is contained in a statement by the Commissioner for Health, Dr Emmanuel Obi, made available to newsmen in Enugu.

According to him, the agreement is based on a comprehensive Diagnostic and Oncology (Cancer) treatment Centre.

Obi disclosed that the State Executive Council (SEC), sequel to the agreement, approved the evacuation of the existing equipment in the centre, as requested by NSIA to enable it to take over the health facility.

He added that the SEC also approved that the evacuated equipment would be put to good use at ESUT Teaching Hospital, Parklane, Enugu and other hospitals in the state.

The Health Commissioner also said that government “sees a greater opportunity for more efficient services to its citizens and beyond, through this collaboration”.

The Guild of Medical Directors (GMD), has urged the Federal Government to appoint its members into committees that would formulate or upgrade the operational guidelines and tariff of the NHIA.

The guild made the appeal in a communiqué it issued at the end of its inaugural Business and Leadership Summit on Wednesday in Abuja.

It said that at the summit, it pointed out that for the National Health Insurance Act (NHIA) to be successful, key providers of health care need to be effectively involved with the operational guidelines of such health insurance.

The communiqué also said that the Federal Government should strongly review the issue of actively leasing out some of its facilities to be managed by the private sector under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

According to the communiqué, rather than continuous engagement in medical tourism by Nigerians, the Federal Government should publicly advocate the use of Nigerian private hospitals with the innovative services that they go abroad to access.

The guild also advocated an urgent set up of the working committee for the continuous and permanent communication between the Federal Ministry of Health and the private sector with the representatives of GMD as key members.

In an interview with the reporters, the National President, Dr Raymond Kuti, said that PPP was the way to go in delivering healthcare services to Nigerians.

“The way we want PPP to run is for the government to give backing to the policies that will allow and approve that those doctors in medical practices in private sector can partner and integrate with government hospitals.

“Lagos state is already doing that and there are hospitals in Lagos in which the sub services are being ceded to doctors in the private sector.

“And they run them for it, the agreement is there and I think this is what we can replicate all over the country,’’ he said.

According to Kuti, 70 per cent of doctors work in the private sector, so their skills should be used in government hospitals as well, which is the PPP segment the group is interested in.

He also said that the guild which was being repositioned to remain a strong partner in the Nigerian health care sector, was wholly complimentary to the public health sector and comparatively better equipped to deliver quality health care.

He said that the goal of the guild was to inaugurate and sustain constructive dialogue with policy makers in the legislative arm of government.

According to him, this is with a view to achieving win-win solutions to the numerous challenges in the Nigerian healthcare sector.

eHealth Africa (eHA), a Non-Governmental Organisation  (NGO), says it is committed towards building stronger health systems in Africa, especially in Nigeria in the area of Information Communication Technology (ICT).

The Executive Director, eHealth Africa, Ms Juliet Odogwu, said this in an interview with Newsmen in Abuja.

Odogwu said that the organisation had been able to train over 200 males and females on technology and software-related skills at different stages of its programmes.

“As an organisation, eHA has more women at its senior management level and it’s working to see a balance in the ratio of women to men at all levels of its workforce.

“To achieve this, the leadership of the organisation designed some early career programmes to help young female graduates start and build their careers.

“We noticed that in the technology sector specifically, we have very few females, who are willing to develop the skills or even get jobs in technology sector because it is seen as a male dominated field.

“We have equally realised that obviously women are entering into the workforce in different capacities and technology should not be any different.

“We want to build that culture in Nigeria and even in the northern Nigeria to be specific to encourage women to see these as vibrant opportunities for them on the long run.

“We want to build the immediate capacity in the environment so we need to be able to see in the next one to two years the number of women in the technology sector increase by at least 30 per cent in the communities where we work,’’ she said.

According to her, one of such initiatives is an all-women cohort of the eHA Academy geared towards helping young women start their careers in software and web development.

She said there was also an all-female paid ”internship cohort” that exposes graduates to the organisation’s values, mission and better prepare them for full-time employment opportunities.

“We will continue our efforts to make eHealth Africa the best place to work and our mission is to build stronger health systems in Africa”.

She further said that the organisation was recently certified as one of the best places to work in Nigeria for 2022 by an international organisation called “Best Places to Work’’.

Odogwu said that the recognition gave the management the drive and motivation to keep raising the bar.