From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
In its bid to tackle outbreak of diseases, the Kogi State Government has commenced the distribution of response commodities to its health facilities, particularly the tertiary health institutions and zonal hospitals in the state.
The State Health Commissioner, Dr Zakari Usman, who flagged off the distribution in Lokoja, the state capital at the weekend, said it was meant to keep any disease outbreak in the state under control.
He said the beneficiaries of the health facilities included the State Teaching Hospital, the Specialist Hospital and the five Zonal Hospitals within the three senatorial districts of the state.
The Commissioner noted that the programme was geared towards assuring the populace that the “government is committed to providing quality health care services to our people at all times.”
“As you are aware, health commodities are very critical to respond to disease outbreaks and prevention of health care infections in the hospitals.
“It is in line with this that the state government, under the leadership of Gov Yahaya Bello, decided to equip our public health institutions with the needed commodities in response to public health threats that may confront the health security.
“This is the first phase of the distribution and we will extend the same to other facilities as the need arises.
“This is an addition to the giant strides we have attained in the area of massive Infrastructure development in the health sector across the state,” he said.
Usman enjoined health workers to always watch for emerging incidents of public health threats at their places of work and report same to the Ministry of Health as early as possible.
He said such vigilance would enable the government to mount an appropriate response to safeguard the health of the populace.
The commissioner, however, implored the benefiting facilities to make good use of the items to improve health care delivery services in their hospitals and Kogi in general.