Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu

By Seriki Adinoyi

In the face of growing emergencies in the country, the Federal Ministry of Health, in addition to strengthening existing trauma centres, is set to establish six more first class trauma centres in the six geo-political zones in the country before the end of the year, to cater for emergency management delivery in the country.

The Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, who disclosed this Monday in an address, while declaring open a workshop on Enhancing Health Management Delivery in Jos, Plateau State, added that other areas of emphasis by the ministry are human capacity building and provision of state of the art equipment for emergency health services, which he said entails pre-service and in-service training.

According to the minister: “The pre-service training would provide the feeder to the pool of health human resource necessary to mount health emergency response to enable for participation in Integrated Emergency Management, involving the six components of Anticipation, Assessment of Risk, Prevention, Preparation, Response and Recovery.”.

The Minister, who was represented by the Director of Special Project in the Ministry, Dr. Michael Arene, said “the current security challenges, crises and disasters have strengthened the resolve of the Federal Government to put in place, structures, processes and procedures that would address health emergencies from the household, community, local government, states to the national levels.”

He said one of such is the Integrated National Emergency Ambulance Service (INEAS), where all Ambulance Services in the country are brought under one roof for coordination and improved effectiveness and efficiency.

Onyebuchi decried a situation when various stakeholders in emergency management do not work together as a team, adding that such has produced poor outcome, in which unnecessary death of victims are recorded as a result individualistic approach to emergency management.

He said the workshop, among others, will train the stakeholders on how to work as a team; “inter-sectional collaboration, cooperation and coordination to enhance emergency management”.

The various stakeholders at the workshop include representatives of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Nigeria Police Force, the Fire Service, Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), Ministry or Environment, and the media.