Rivers has adequate PHC Centres, lacks facilities –Director

Dr Clement Edet, Director, Planning and Statistics, Rivers Primary Healthcare Management Board says the state has adequate Primary HealthCare centres (PHC), but lacked facilities.

Edet disclosed this in Port Harcourt on Wednesday at a training workshop on “Healthcare financing.”

According to him, the state had 141 model Healthcare Centres while 186 Medical Doctors were working in the facilities.

He said 340 nurses/midwives, 39 medical laboratory scientist, 618 technologists and 632 health information officers worked in Primary Healthcare centres across the State.

The director said that the doctors working in the centres across the State were being monitored to know where each of them was at any given time.

According to Edet, some medical personnel that did not “do well” had been “fired” .

He urged the state government to invest more resources on PHC, but noted that there was no need to build more centres in all the wards.

The director noted that five kilometres distance from one centre to the other was enough.

“If one centre can effectively serve the people in a Community, there is no need to build more,’’ he said.

Edet noted that inadequate skilled manpower, equipment, poor quality of service, poor terrain, insecurity were some of the setbacks to achieving universal health coverage.