Category: Uncategorized

By Esemua Arhewe

Proper hygiene and cleanliness have been identified as key elements to containing the spread of Lassa Fever in the country.

A medical expert at the Lagoon Hospital, Ikeja, Dr. Oyekunle Oyetunde, said Nigerians must maintain proper hygiene to stay safe from the fever.

Speaking to The Nation in Lagos, Oyetunde, said that though the disease is being handled by the Ministry of Health, Nigerians must also put in efforts to stop its spread.

“Hygiene is important. We have a lot of rats and rodents around us, in our houses schools and offices, and so we should take care of ourselves,” Oyetunde said.

He also called for more awareness on the fever, saying this would allow Nigerians go know what to do every time.

Ekiti Government on Friday announced the immediate dismissal from service of the three public secondary school teachers accused of sexually harassing their female students.

The State Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), which made this known in Ado Ekiti, said the board dismissed the erring teachers for sexual molestation and for bringing the state into disrepute.

Their dismissal was announced after an emergency plenary of the Teaching Service Commission held in Ado Ekiti.

The TESCOM Chairman, Mr Babatunde Abegunde, stated that the act of the teachers amounted to gross misconduct unbecoming of those entrusted with moulding the destiny of younger ones.

He explained that the penalty meted out to them was in line with the Public Service Rules and the State Teachers’ Manual.

The chairman noted that the Commission followed due process as laid down by extant rules to avoid miscarriage of justice in arriving at its decision.

He explained that the erring staff were first queried and interrogated at the school level before repeating the process at the commission.

According to the chairman, the trio earlier appeared before the Commission’s Disciplinary Committee which, after thorough investigation that took it to affected schools and communities, later arrived at the appropriate recommendations.

The names of the three teachers were given as: Ajibola Gbenga and Olaofe Abiodun, both of All Souls Grammar School, Ado Ekiti and Mr Olaitan Adeyanju of Osi Community High School, Osi Ekiti.

Until their dismissal, the trio was said to be middle level officers in the teaching profession.

While Ajibola, was Grade Level 12 Officer, teaching Computer Education; Olaofe, was a Grade Level 14 officer teaching Chemistry while Adeyanju on the other hand, was a GL 13 officer who used to teach Accounting.(NAN)

From Damian Duruiheoma, Owerri

The Provost of the Imo State College of Nursing, Orlu, Princess Ngozi Duru has attributed the high demand for Nigerian nurses in the United States of America, Canada and other developed countries to the discipline imbibed in the nurses by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN).

Duru, who spoke with journalists after NMCN concluded a weeklong training workshop for heads of various colleges and schools of nursing in the South-east and South-south regions of the country, which held in her school, said the rigour of nursing education in Nigeria is so strict that only the very serious and committed ones can scale the hurdles.

According to her, the reforms introduced by the NMCN in nursing education in the country had ensured that any candidate who passed council exams in Nigeria would pass similar exams easily in America and Europe.

Duru applauded the NMCN for their hard work, reforms in nursing education and curriculum development, which enable nurses trained and licensed in Nigeria to simply challenge the board examinations of any state in the United States to continue their practice as registered nurses once they pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), a nationwide examination for licensing nurses in the US and Canada, without sending them back into the classrooms for training as is done in many countries.

“Like other professions, the NMCN certifies candidates as Registered Nurses (RN) and Midwives with licenses. For anyone to make it, there is nothing like carry over.

It is fail and fail out. So, NMCN is the toughest council in Nigeria in terms of discipline and anyone who is able to pass the board exams, that person can pass any exam anywhere in the world as far as it has something to do with nursing and midwifery.

So, when the board in the United States discovered this, it stopped sending Nigerian nurses back to class for refresher course. That’s why Nigerian nurses have become the most sought after in the world, particularly the United States and Canada,” she said.

Read Also: ‘Nurses critical to achieving Universal Health Coverage’

The training programme that held in her school was about students information management system (SIMS), which upon  completion, would enable various colleges and schools of nursing in the country to be able to manage their students records seamlessly from the schools to the council.

While describing the hosting of the event by the school as an honour to the college and Imo State in general, she said her return to the college was to save it from the institution from the set-back the college witnessed in the past two years.

Duru disclosed that plans are afoot to secure accreditations for the school of midwifery from the NMCN and the general studies courses by the National Board for Technical Education (NABTEB) in the coming months.

According to her, with the accreditations, the college would be able to increase intakes during admission. The provost promised that, in spite of the setbacks, the college under her leadership is determined to do everything possible to bring the school back to the part of development.

“When we started this college in 2014, the first set of students we graduated became overall best in Nigeria with 98 per cent score at the NMCN exams.

Before February 2019, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria raised a circular for all schools of nursing and midwifery in Nigeria to move into collegiate or risk being shut down; meaning not to be regulated by the council by the year 2023.

Of course, Imo State College of Nursing, Orlu, had already established as a college since 2014 and ahead of all other nursing training institutions in Nigeria,” she said.

Our Reporter

In its effort to ensure that lack of access to credit and capital investments is a thing of the past, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to create the necessary environment for medical personnel to access favourable loans.

This, according to the NMA, will enable those who want to set up private hospitals and other medical outfits to have access to favourable loans and eradicate the constraints to the improvement of the private health sector in country.

This was disclosed by the NMA President, Dr. Francis Faduyile, during the association’s visit to the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele this week. According to Faduyile, the lack of access to credit and capital investments has consistently been found to represent one of the main constraints to the improvement of the private health sector in Nigeria.

“Access to finance becomes further complicated with high costs of borrowing, short tenure of loans and high currency risks. The conditions of lending virtually exclude assisting young doctors who do not have established clientele and require three to five years to build a practice.

“Female entrepreneurial doctors eager to provide services especially to mothers and children find it hard to do so. Doctors in hard-to-reach areas and conflict-afflicted zones are unable to do so due to the prevailing conditions in these areas.  Most of the providers who have established their own businesses have done so through personal and family savings,” Faduyile said.

The NMA President therefore urged the CBN to help in the creation of a health bank like the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), which will further increase access to funds to catalyse the needed development and upgrade in health facilities and equipment in Nigeria.

“We have also discussed this issue of the health bank with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, during our courtesy visit to the State House on  July 16, 2019, and through many other communiqués.

Read Also: Anambra Govt to deploy drone technology to improve healthcare delivery – Commissioner

Also, there is need for the creation of a health specific window in the following instruments – Micro Small Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDEF) and the Real Sector Support Facility (RSSF). Until recently, these instruments were not available to the health sector. However, we urge you to create further incentives to catalyse the much-needed investments in the health sector.

“We ask that the CBN work with both the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and the Bank of Industry (BOI) to support the demand and supply sides of healthcare financing.

Innovative use of first-loss and FOREX guarantees could also be explored to allow the lowering of perceived risk of health-sector specific loan portfolios of commercial banks. Lastly, we ask the CBN to support the setting up of at least three centres of excellence in different specialties in Nigeria.

We are glad to note that the AFRIEXIM Bank will be building a world-class cancer centre in Abuja with construction set to commence in the next  few weeks,” he said.

The CBN Governor, however, advised the NMA to partner with financial institutions that will interface with it on their behalf, saying there is no way the NMA and the apex bank can have direct interventions.

He also noted that some health institutions have followed that approach and have had billions of naira released to them for the upgrade of their facility and equipment.

While embracing the idea for the creation of a Health Bank, Emefiele noted that its creation will be in phases, just as Bank of Industry and Bank of Agriculture started with interfacing with banks before they eventually developed into full-fledged banks. He said the creation of a Health Bank will be the end goal.

Moses Emorinken, Abuja

Quality and accurate data plays a critical role in increasing awareness and advocacy towards engendering qualitative policy formulation, especially in improving health indices in infant mortality, maternal mortality, etc., in the country.

Whether Nigeria will be able to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, is highly dependent on qualitative engagements with its citizens and generating accurate data concerning their social demands and needs.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Chief of field, Port Harcourt, Guy Yogo, made this known on Thursday in Port Harcourt, during a media dialogue on National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS), SDGs, data and solution journalism.

According to him, “We are at a critical point, so much so that we are facing new issues in Nigeria in our demographic growth. Many children today are left behind and we must ensure no child is left behind in his or her right. We have a vision to mobilise resources to promote children’s rights.

“Our momentum is geared towards the acceleration of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). We will change the narratives by speaking on the situation of children and putting forth an accurate narrative about our journey, and move to ensure that we achieve our goals.

“Data available from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), indicates tha we still have a lot of health challenges that needs to be surmounted. However, we are very hopeful we can make it.

“For example, under-five mortality is still very high at 132 deaths per 1,000 live births. Also, maternal mortality rate is still high. It is inexplicable that in the 21st century women still lose their lives from child birth”.

READ ALSO: ‘How to achieve sustainable development goals’

He further added: “To reduce this trend, we need serious awareness to build coalition about the vision of Nigeria and social demands from communities to improve their rights.

“Quality dialogue between policy makers, civil society organizations, communities, children, men, and women etc., will not be possible without the collaboration of the media. We need to accelerate efforts and raise awareness because SDG 2030 is just around the corner”.

The Head of Child Rights Information Bureau, Federal Ministry of Information, Mr Olumide Osanyinpeju, in his remark said: “The need to use data figures accurately in the advocacy reports of Development Partners like UNICEF and other Agencies is paramount to the government of the Federation, to guide against contentious issues.

“It has become very urgent and important not only to the Government of Nigeria, but also to key Partners and Stakeholders. Against this backdrop, this Media Dialogue is not only timely but also on point.

“Both Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) are survey initiatives designed to assist countries, Nigeria inclusive, in filling data gaps for monitoring human development in general and the situation of children and women in particular.

“These surveys have been instrumental in strengthening national statistics capacities, highlighting and filling gaps in quality data, monitoring and tracking progress toward national and international development goals like the SDGs and, in identifying emerging issues and disparities among groups in societies.

“Collecting quality data is necessary, but not sufficient. Data must also be disseminated in a user- friendly way to ensure that they are understood and used. Data also informs policy decisions and enhance advocacy and public awareness on priority development issues.”

Onimisi Alao, Yola

A total of 202, 817 children schooling in five local government areas of Adamawa State have benefitted from school bags, books and other instructional materials provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The materials were handed over to the benefitting LGAs Tuesday during an inaugural distribution ceremony organised jointly in Yola by the Fund and the Adamawa State Universal Basic Education Board (ASUBEB).

UNICEF Education Consultant in the state, Mr Isaiah Joel, said during the handing over of the materials at the Mahmud Ribadu Square, that 5,070 teachers would also benefit from the intervention in the five LGAs, namely Fufore, Girei, Guyuk, Mubi North and Yola South.

He explained that the school materials would be distributed across the LGAs in this initial phase of the project tagged UNICEF School Supply which is planned to extend to all the 21 LGAs of the state in the near future.

READ ALSO: UNICEF provides uniform, bags to 12, 000 pupils in Adamawa

Each of the targeted 202, 817 pupils and students in the initial benefitting five LGAs is to get school bag, a set of notebooks, pens and pencils, crayons, and other writing materials the beneficiaries require.

“We call our package ‘School in a Carton’ because each carton of our supplies contains materials that a teacher and 40 children would need for a school term,” Isaiah Joel said, adding that the UNICEF School Supply comes with teaching materials for use of teachers.

Earlier during the UNICEF School Supply distribution flag-off ceremony, the Acting Executive Chairperson of ASUBEB,
Hajiya Fadimatu Alfa, said it was the first time that the state would receive such large consignment of instructional materials as donation.

She thanked UNICEF for both the School Supply project and other projects that the UN body had done for the state in the past.