The Ondo state government has boasted primary health delivery by equipping over 300 primary health centres PHCs across the state with medical equipment worth millions of Naira.

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, while distributing the equipment, has said that the development was his administration’s modest way of strengthening primary healthcare delivery in the state. According to him, his administration “is revitalising the primary healthcare system which hitherto was seen as unfit because of its lack of modern tools and equipment and is fast shedding its obsolete toga for a refreshing and revitalised one”.

The intervention, the governor said, was “a demonstration of political will to strategically rescue and consciously restore hope to the health sector and guarantee good health for residents, especially pregnant women and children under 5”, until the primary healthcare system in the state becomes a reference point in qualitative maternal, neonatal and child healthcare in the country”.

According to the Vanguard report, the governor has pledged that his administration will not rest on its oars until all three categories of PHCs’ facilities in the state have basic medical equipment, necessary to enable it to deliver on its mandate. The state Health Commissioner, Dr Wahab Adegbenro, also told press and guests that the distribution of equipment was one of the requirements of the Ondo’s ‘Save Our Children’ initiative (Agbomola) targeted at reducing Peri-natal and child mortality and morbidity.

The report also had it that, the Executive Secretary of Ondo State Primary Healthcare Agency, Dr Francis Akanbiemu, while speaking at the occasion, said that, for the PHC system to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity, treat commonly occurring diseases, operate within the five principles of the PHCs and address all its components, there was a need for standard laboratories and basic equipment to perform optimally. .