The Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Gbene Dr Joi Nunieh, says the Commission is discussing with key stakeholders and potential partners to fine tune strategies for boosting primary healthcare in the Niger Delta region.
Nunieh, who spoke during a courtesy visit by the President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, stressed the importance of extending health facilities and services to the rural communities.
She stated: “The Niger Delta is persistently faced with health challenges due to lack of quality healthcare facilities and services to take care of the people of the region. Worst hit are the people living in the rural communities who bear the environmental impact of oil production and related activities.”
The NDDC Chief Executive Officer observed that findings from recent inspections of health facilities in the region revealed the need to seek urgent collaboration to effectively tackle the inadequacies in the health sector.
According to her, “we find it necessary to have a robust engagement with the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and the pharmaceutical industry.
“There are some prevalent ailments in the region which exist as a result of hydrocarbon contamination. These diseases are killing people and decimating aquatic lives. The United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, reported that one in every eight person in the Niger Delta will die of cancer. This is frightening and the NDDC is worried about the prognosis.”
Nunieh requested the relevant players in the pharmaceutical industry to assist the NDDC to provide drugs at subsidized rates for the primary health centres in the rural communities, stating that it would contribute to the efforts to promote healthy living in safe and clean environment.
She announced that the NDDC was starting a “Charity Begins at Home” programme that would encourage the clean-up of the communities at the grassroots, adding: “We are going to have a competition where all the Niger Delta communities will contest for the cleanest village in the region. The prize will be an infrastructural project that will be based on the assessed need of the people in the community.
“We are also initiating another competition for the safest local government in the region. It is going to be based on where there is no kidnapping and where the crime rate is low. We want to encourage the youths to stay away from crime to create a conducive environment for investors to return to the region.”
Nunieh stated that in the 2020 Next Level agenda, the NDDC would desist from giving handouts to youths as such practice was not sustainable. She said: “Rather than give fish, we will give tools that will put food on the table on a sustainable basis.”
She appealed to organisations and individuals to make commitments to do something as a way of giving back to their communities, noting that such contributions could be in the form of providing mono-pumps for water in the rural areas.
In his remarks, Mazi Ohuabunwa assured that the PSN would support the NDDC to provide basic medicines for the primary health centres. He said that the pharmaceutical industry had in the past collaborated with the Commission in mass de-worming and other healthcare programmes.
He said further: “This is a noble cause which the pharmaceutical industry will be willing to participate. It is true that the industry, like many other businesses, is facing challenges, but that will not be a hindrance in a project that would be mutually beneficial to all parties.
“What the NDDC has set out to do is good and laudable. So, we will give it our utmost support. It is heart-warming that the Commission is going beyond the provision of infrastructure to other areas that impact on the well-being of the people, especially healthcare.”
Charles Obi Odili
Director, Corporate Affairs.
December 14, 2019.