Health: Kebbi Government Urged to budget for Health Supervision
By Mohammed Kaka,
Kebbi
The Kebbi State government has been urged to include a dedicated budget line in its 2025 budget to ensure adequate supervision of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the state.
The Executive Director of the Council For Affirmative Action (COFAA), Mr. Mbami Iliya Sabka, made this call during a roundtable discussion with journalists in Kebbi on Saturday. He emphasized that this initiative is crucial for improving healthcare services in the state.
Speaking on behalf of a coalition of six Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) implementing a project titled “Improved Quality Healthcare Service Delivery through Integrated Supportive Supervision (ISS)” in Kebbi State, Mr. Sabka highlighted the importance of media support in influencing the Kebbi State Government to create this budget line.
The project, implemented by Better Life Restoration International (BERI) in collaboration with COFAA, aims to enhance healthcare delivery. The coalition includes Life Transformation for Africa Initiative (LIFT4AFRICA), Women with Disability Integrity & Development Initiative (WDIDI), Bauchi State Network of Civil Societies (BASNEC), She-Alert Care Foundation (SHE-ALERT), and BERI.
Mr. Sabka noted that BERI is the anchor organization for the project, which is funded by USAID and spans five years from October 2020 to October 2025. The project is implemented in collaboration with Palladium and Nigeria Resource Partners (RPs). It calls for the establishment of an Integrated Supportive Supervision Technical Working Group (ISS-TWG) and a Private Sector Engagement Unit in the PHC Departments of LGAs.
ISS is an intervention designed to facilitate quality improvement by ensuring adequate oversight and the transfer of skills and knowledge to healthcare service providers. According to Mr. Sabka, ISS will help strengthen the healthcare system, enhance quality service delivery, improve performance, and encourage open, two-way communication.
The project observed that among the numerous PHCs in Kebbi, only the main PHCs per ward are regularly supervised, leaving many others unsupervised. This gap underscores the need for the proposed budget line to ensure comprehensive supervision and support for all PHCs in the state.