Delta Contributory Health Director Admonishes Residents Doctors on Expertise in Healthcare Services
ASABA/Nigeria: The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Delta State Contributory Health Commission, Dr. Ben Nkechika, has called on the Nigerian Association of Residents Doctors (NARD) to deploy their expertise to all levels of healthcare services in the state through telemedicine.
Dr. Nkechika who was a Guest Speaker, made this call at the on-going 40th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) with the them: “Accelerating the Progress towards Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria: Opportunities and Challenges in the era of a pandemic – the Delta State Perspective”, at the Delta State University Teaching Hospital, DELSUTH, Oghara.
In his presentation, the DG said “I want to encourage the National Association of Resident Doctors that though their call of duty is at the tertiary level of care, as much as possible, a specialist at the Teaching Hospital should be able to deploy clinical expertise to other levels of health care through Telemedicine, in such a way that a primary healthcare centre, or a secondary health care facility can reach out to a specialist residence in a Teaching Hospital for technical guidance for a patient before the patient is able to get physical access to a tertiary facility.”
Speaking on the journey towards achieving Universal Health Coverage in Delta State, the DG said that the ‘journey has been challenging but successful’, stating that the target was not just access to health care, but access to quality health care for all Deltans especially those in rural hard to reach communities, at the same standard that is available in cities like Lagos, Abuja or Asaba.
“We are achieving that through a well-designed, strategic and structured health insurance programme. One of these programactivity, is a public/private partnership framework where well established private hospitals are encouraged with a simple financing loan from the Bank of Industry, to set up facilities in rural communities, leveraging on the Health Insurance Scheme that ensures patient get quality Healthcare services no matter their socioeconomic status or geographical location,” he stated.
On lessons learnt from the COVID 19 pandemic, the DG said: “All countries of the world have experienced the consequences of neglecting or not giving due attention to the health care systems. I hope that we will develop the lessons learnt from the pandemic and use it to redesign our health care system leveraging on our unique expertise and ingenuity. We have the capacity and the capability, and most importantly, we have a vibrant Human-Resources-for-Health, which if properly incentivized with adequate training, will deliver quality healthcare service all the time.”
The Nigerian Association of Residents Doctors (NARD) was established in 1951 and is located in Abuja with over 30 branch offices throughout Nigeria.
The Delta State Teaching Hospital Oghara is the host to the Association’s Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference this year.
This is the first time in the history of the association, that a state-owned teaching hospital will be hosting the national secretariat.
