The Chairman of Delta State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. (Mrs.) Isioma Okobah has recently stated that the measles vaccination campaign will be flagged off in Oleh, Isoko LGA, by the State Governor on Wednesday February 28, 2018.
The State Primary Health Care Chairman also disclosed that the Measles Vaccination campaign will commence throughout Delta State on Thursday March 1, 2018 to Tuesday March 13, 2018. Continuing, Dr. (Mrs.) Isioma Okobah, who also doubles as the Executive Assistant on E-Health Programme to His Excellency, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor of Delta State, urged nursing mothers to take advantage of the exercise to vaccinate their children from the age of nine months to five years against the deadly measles disease.
Speaking further, the American trained medical doctor during an interactive session with newsmen used the opportunity to inform the populace about the services being undertaken by the Delta State Primary Health Care Development Agency which she stated is a body that supervises health care functions and activities in Delta State. According to her, “It means we supervise, monitor and manage all the Health Care Centres in rural communities, in collaboration with Local Government Councils and the Local Government Service Commission.” Continuing, she revealed that His Excellency, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa has laid out plans to revitalize Primary Health Care in Delta State which is in line with his SMART Agenda programme.
Dr. (Mrs.) Okobah, further stated that their goal at the State Primary Health Care Agency is to provide quality and affordable health care to all Deltans, aimed at bringing health care to the door steps of Deltans, saying, “In the past, we noticed that majority of the people who live in rural communities could not access health care, hence His Excellency in his magnanimity has asked us to take health care to the door steps of members of the various communities.” She also hinted that the state governor is currently renovating a couple of health care centres across the state to make sure that they are in tune with the health insurance scheme, which provides free health care to all Deltans in rural communities., emphasizing that the Health Insurance Contributive Scheme is actually functional in at least, twenty-five Primary Health Care centres across the State.
Continuing, she also disclosed that at the agency, they work on reproductive health which takes care of mothers during pregnancy and post pregnancy stages which entails ante-natal care for the pregnant women.
In her words, “we enlighten mothers that when they are pregnant, they should seek for professionals at the health centres so that they can get ante-natal care, delivery and after delivery to also come for care and also bring their babies for immunization and health care.”
She further stated that they also advocate for proper nutrition, where they educate mothers and let them know what they should feed their children with so that they don’t become malnourished and get exposed to common diseases. The agency has also embarked on malaria programme where they educate mothers to keep their environment clean of stagnant water so that they don’t breed mosquitoes that transmit malaria fever; we also encourage them on good hygiene. She also stated that the Delta State Primary Health Care Development Agency also carry out disease surveillance saying, “we monitor and sensitize the rural dwellers against these diseases before their outbreak and make sure that we curtail the outbreak.” She concluded.