By: Taiwo Amodu – Abuja
Former Governor of Enugu State and Senator representing Enugu East in the Senate, Senator Chimaroke Nnamani has said that the country’s health sector would experience a concrete turnaround if the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, becomes the president.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Cooperation and Integration in Africa/ NEPAD, in a statement on Tuesday, said given the antecedents of the APC standard-bearer as former Lagos State Governor, where he said the health sector enjoyed generous budgetary provisions, stakeholders and personnel in the sector would be accorded the attention they deserve in the nation’s budget.
He recalled that Tinubu kickstarted the Roll back malaria programme under which, according to him, more than 3.6 million patients received free treatment and over one million treated nets.
Senator Nnamani added that over 181,627 doses of the Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine formulation were provided, and intermittent preventative therapy for malaria in pregnant women was implemented.
“To end poliomyelitis, a national immunization program was launched, Lagos state keyed in and more than 2.5 million children received the vaccines as a result.
“Lagos State launched a School Health Program, which provided free eyes screening and treatment for about 6,600 students and provided free milk to over 900 public schools totaling about 297,000students.”
The former Enugu State governor also recalled that Tinubu’s Free Health Care and Reproductive programme covered Children Under 12 and Adults Over 60 and at no-cost prenatal care for expectant mothers.
He said:”This plan also benefited public employees, their spouses, and their four dependent children who were under the age of 18. This free health programme helped more than four million children, 1.9 million adults, and 1.2 million government employees.”
According to him, “the reproductive health programme was responsible for training 420 community-based workers, 70 health workers, and 154 community health extension workers in the numerous reproductive health topics required by the state which helped more than 328,000 clients from the State”.
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