Stakeholders insist on prioritising strengthening PHCs at rural areas

By Stanley Onyekwere

Stakeholders in the health sector have stressed the need to prioritise overall improvement of Primary Health Care Centres ((PHCs) for the delivery of effective services to the teeming people at the grassroots across the FCT.
This, they noted can be achieved by strategically tackling issues of inefficient infrastructure, manpower, power supply and dearth of political will to execute articulated policies.
They spoke at a recent sensitization campaign during the commemoration of the World Oral Health Day, in Kubwa, Abuja.
Chairman, Nigerian Dental Association (FCT-NDA), Dr. Olatunji Abdulhakeem lamented the difficulties experienced by patients who have dental health challenges and have to leave their local health centers to secondary health facilities to receive treatment.
Abdulhakeem noted that oral health affects the body’s overall wellbeing, hence the need to prioritise it at the PHCs.
Also, the FCT-NDA scribe called on policymakers to make and implement policies that would accelerate and encourage the availability of Dental health services across PHC facilities.
Similarly, the convener of the Sensitization campaign and Executive Director, Center for School Health Education and Environmental Hygiene (CSHEEH), Dr. Folashade Momoh educating school children was as important as the message of oral hygiene.
Momoh noted that children are change agents and will easily assimilate, practice and disseminate information to their family and friends.
She therefore, called on parents to be good role models by practicing oral hygiene with their wards as children easily imitate whatever they see. She further highlighted that Schools should include the practicality of oral hygiene in their curriculum to drive home the needed message.
World Oral Health Day is marked annually on March 20 to raise awareness on a myriad of issues around oral health and the importance of oral hygiene by calling on governments and agencies to work together towards healthier mouths. And, the theme for 2023 is “Be Proud of Your Mouth, for a Lifestyle of Smiles”.
It was gathered that as part of activities to drive the sensitization campaign, about 270 pupils in Kubwa received a health talk on the importance of oral hygiene and some dental hygiene kits.