The Commissioner for Health in Enugu State, Dr. Sam Ngwu, on Wednesday described the State’s Free Maternal and Child Healthcare Programme, FMCH, initiated in 2007 as ambiguous and not working adequately.
Ngwu disclosed this at a public hearing organised by the Enugu State House of Assembly Committee on Health on how to resuscitate the programme.
The commissioner said that when he assumed office, he discovered that the programme was ambiguous and needed to be streamlined.
He pointed out that indigenes of other states in the South-East and beyond came to the state to avail themselves of the free maternal health services, stressing that such development brought further decay to the system.
“If you see our delivery rooms, where these babies are delivered, you will weep”, he lamented.
Also a former commissioner for health in the State, Dr. Martins Chukwunwike, under whose time the programme began, also lamented that the programme was no longer working.
Chukwunwike lamented that the programme that was meant for the poorest of the poor had been turned into revenue venture for the government.
“The FMCH is meant for the poorest of the poor but emphasises has shifted from saving life to raising internally generated revenue,” he said.
He, however, noted that the FMCH Programme’s impact was enormous and should be revived to help the poor.
He also noted that as a result of poor facilities at the government health centres, pregnant women were being forced to seek alternative health services elsewhere.
Speaking in like manner, a non-governmental organisation, White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, Nigeria bemoaned the poor situation of the programme and urged the government to improve on it.
Representative of the organisation in the South East and Enugu State Coordinator, Mrs Miriam Menkiti, maintained that showing of tax clearance to access the programme should be discontinued since it was meant for the poor.
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