Niger State Ministry of Primary Healthcare, in collaboration with UNICEF, has trained about 1,605 people as community volunteers in the last week in Niger State as part of efforts to increase awareness among rural communities about routine immunisation and other primary healthcare-related health issues.
The training, which was organised for community volunteers comprising FOMWAN, the women wing of CAN, youth leaders, traditional birth attendants, and religious leaders, drew participants from about 10 LGAs of the state, with each local government presenting 160 participants from 10 wards across the beneficiary local government councils, except Gurara LGA, which has 165 persons.
The local government areas that participated in the training were Chanchaga, Bosso, Guara, Suleja, and Kontagora. Others were Mashegu, Gbako, Wushishi, Agwara, and Borgu.
Speaking at the end of the orientation, community engagement, and sensitization meeting at Gurara LGA, the centre of the training, the representative of UNICEF and the state ministry of primary healthcare, Bala Musa, from the National Orientation Agency (NOA), urged the people not to allow religious and cultural beliefs to deny them access to government health facilities because of some misconceptions, which he attributed to ignorance and a lack of knowledge regarding the implementation of government policies.
Musa, who is a Deputy Director with the NOA Niger State Office, said people should take the responsibility of their own health into their own hands by going to government-approved hospitals to seek medication, not minding the little cost of some items and a token amount for the services offered, saying government services were far better.
The representative who spoke further on the expectations of the participants, however, disclosed that they were expected to go back to their various wards and communities to educate and sensitise the people, right from their families, on the need for them to change their mindset and take on the challenges of their health by visiting government health facilities to access available services provided by the government, especially pregnant women who were discovered not to be completing the required four times of visits to the hospital for antenatal services.
Mr. Bala Musa said the essence of organising the training was to sensitise, educate, and mobilise community stakeholders so as to enable them to go back to their various communities after their training and showcase the lessons learned to their people on why pregnant women need to complete their antenatal visits and children who have received zero doses of immunisation will be reconnected back to the health facilities to complete their immunisation exercise.
Also speaking, the Director PHC of the local government, Idris Abdulkadir, said participants were drawn from 11 health wards of the council, adding that their participation in the orientation and community engagement meetings will go a long way towards strengthening the health facilities of the council.
He explained further that the trained community volunteers were being trained to assist the council in mobilising their various community members and enlightening them on the need to patronise many of the introduced healthcare services that were unknown to people in rural communities.
According to him, the council PHC services will receive full-blown patronage from the communities, and he appreciated UNICEF and the state ministry of primary healthcare for organising the training.