Directors’ in the Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare have been urged to ensure effective delivery of services within the Health Sector to the Nigerian populace.

This is considered very critical to achieving the mandate of the Ministry, as well as ensuring purposeful succession planning to sustain the Ministry’s current achievements.

Permanent Secretary Daju Kachollom mni, stated during the retreat for Directors’ in the Ministry held at the Carlton Swiss Hotel Enugu, Enugu State.

The theme is ” Strengthening Leadership for Effective and Efficient Health and Social Welfare Governance.

Addressing Directors, Daju Kachollom highlighted the importannce and objectives of the retreat for effective and efficient provision of healthcare services.

The retreat, she stated, will involve strategic planning to assess the Ministry’s current position, set long-term goals and, outline the steps required to achieve them.

Additionally, it will also foster team building, strengthen interpersonal relationships among participants, improve communication and, encourage a collaborative environment.

While defining Leadership as a driving force behind organisations, the Permanent Secretary implores the Directors’ to prioritise transparency, embrace innovation, foster partnerships and, build empowered, sustainable teams to ensure an efficient and effective system that meets its goals.

“In this regard, we must fully embrace the on-going reforms and take ownership of them.

We must adopt the principles of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021–2025, with particular focus on the new Performance Management System (PMS), which is designed to track both individual performance and our collective contributions to ministerial and national development goals.

At its core, performance management aligns individual goals with Organizational objectives, ensuring a unifieɗ direction “; the Permanent Secretary added.

Additionally, Daju Kachollom urged Directors’ present at the retreat to prioritize mentoring and succession planning.

Mentoring and succession planning, according to her, are key initiatives to strengthen and sustain the progress achieved by the Ministry.

Major highlights of the retreat include power point presentations by the participating Directors’ in the Ministry, further affirming a deliberate intent of the top management
on enhancing leadership skills and, addressing challenges facing the Ministry while offering solutions to overcome them.

Uche Ewelike as the Executive Secretary of the Imo State Health Insurance Agency is a round peg in a round hole.

Since his appointment, the Mbano born foreign trained health economist has repositioned the health institute and set it on the part of excellence.

Under his watch, people’s numerous health challenges are attended to with the highest level of professionalism at a small or no cost.

Thousands of rural and urban women have successfully been delivered of babies at no cost. Cases that could have cost fortunes had been handled at no cost by the agency. Cesarean cases handled at no cost.

With just N15,000, you have got yourself covered by the Agency under its health insurance scheme program for an annum.

The Agency also has a scheme that guarantees absolute but quality healthcare delivery service for vulnerable people in the state for a period of a year.

This is me thanking Dr Ewelike and his team for what they are doing at Imo state Health Insurance Agency.

The Federal Government through Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare has reiterated its commitment to reducing maternal and newborn mortality, emphasizing the urgent significance of retraining of frontline health workers.

Speaking in a Radio Nigeria Network news programme today; Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako stated that the theme for this year’s Commemoration of World Health Day “Healthy Beginnings, Hopeful Futures” aligns perfectly with the manifesto agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR.

Dr. Salako said the commitment of the government to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths in the country is receiving urgent attention.

“And to achieve that, the Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative was developed as a mechanism to ensure that universal health coverage is achieved.

We are able to save lives. We are able to prevent physical and financial pains”, he added.

Elaborating on some of the maternal and new born initiatives of the Ministry, the Minister highlighted the critical importance of training and retraining of health workers. There is a target to train at least 120,000 frontline workers, he stated. About 50 percent of them have already been trained.

“If you look at one of the key deliverables of the Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare within the Presidential Priorities is to ensure that by 2027, we reduce maternal mortality by at least 20 percent and reduce infant mortality by at least 15 percent.

In order to ensure we do that, the professional delivering the service must be well trained”, Dr. Salako further emphasized.

Taking capacity building a notch higher, the Minister pointed out that a practitioner must show evidence of continued professional development on annual basis; besides renewal of practising licence.

Speaking on ensuring equitable access to maternal and newborn care across the country, Dr. Salako informed Nigerians that the present administration is intentional on expansion and development of primary healthcare centres.

He further said: ” We are developing such initiatives like MAMI (Maternal & Neo-Natal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative) which is specifically targeting high-budget local government with respect to maternal mortality rates.

So you will see that with all this put together, we are taking maternal and child healthcare closer to the people at the grassroots.”