Residents of Dei-Dei, Kubwa, and Dutse Alhaji in Bwari Area Council, Abuja, have appealed to the government to deploy more health personnel to primary healthcare centres in their communities to improve service delivery.
The Primary Health Care Centre in Dei-Dei, Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) remains a critical lifeline for residents of the host community and surrounding areas.
Established in 1997, according to the village head, Malam Saidu Hamza Sani, the facility provides essential services, including birth registration, antenatal care, general clinical services, and access to intervention drugs such as those for tuberculosis, among others.
The centre also conducts basic laboratory tests prescribed for patients, including Packed Cell Volume (PCV), malaria tests, genotype screening, and urinalysis. These services have been sustained largely through a stable solar power system donated by a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
However, like many primary healthcare facilities, the centre is grappling with significant challenges, including inadequate personnel, dilapidated infrastructure, and persistent theft of critical equipment.
The residents of Dutsen Alhaji and Kubwa have also appealed to authorities in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) for improved personnel during a visit to the communities.
Mr Yakubu Dogara, a resident of Dutse Alhaji, said the area’s growing population had put a lot of strain on the available health workers, resulting in long waiting hours for patients.
According to him, the shortage of personnel has affected the timely delivery of healthcare services at the facility.
“Each time I visit the health centre, I spend several hours before I am attended to because there are not enough health workers to meet patients’ needs,” he said.
Similarly, Mrs Chimamanda Ejiofor, a resident of Kubwa, said the primary healthcare centre in the community required additional personnel, noting that it also caters for residents of other neighbouring communities.
She stressed that the increasing number of patients had overstretched the few available workers and urged the government to strengthen the facility with more qualified personnel.
Some other residents, who also spoke with NAN, expressed similar concerns, saying improved staffing would enhance access to quality healthcare and reduce delays in service delivery.
When NAN visited some of the primary healthcare centres in the two communities, some health workers, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, confirmed the shortage of personnel.
The workers explained that the situation had forced many facilities to rely on volunteers to bridge the manpower gap and cope with the growing number of patients.
“We only have a few permanent staff. Most of those working here are volunteers, so we urgently need more health workers to run this facility effectively,” one of them said.
They also identified inadequate infrastructure as a major challenge, saying many of the facilities lacked sufficient office space and basic amenities such as toilets for patients.
The workers further called for improved funding, adding that many primary healthcare centres had little or no overhead allocation and often relied on personal initiative to keep operations running.
They also appealed for regular capacity-building programmes to enhance the skills of health personnel and improve healthcare service delivery in the communities.