Anambra State government has refuted allegations of forcing Officers in Charge (OICs) of Primary Health Centers (PHCs) across the state to pay for expired drugs in their centres.
Executive Secretary, State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (ANSPHCDA), Dr Chioma Ezenyimulu made the clarification in Awka, the state capital during a Round Table meeting with the media and other stakeholders themed, ‘Improving quality of service delivery in PHCs.’
Some officers at the Health centers had accused government of insisting they pay for drugs sent to them even when they had expired, just as they attributed the high cost of drugs at the centres to government’s exploitative tendencies.
They also accused government of not providing the approved funds for the smooth running of the PHCs.
But Ezenyimulu who was represented at the occasion by Director, Community Health Services, Dr Frank Umeh, insisted that nobody was forced to pay for expired drugs, blaming it on the officers’ inability to inform the agency when the drugs were about to expire.
She said, “What happens is that the OICs are not dutiful to report to the supervising agency when the drugs are about to expire. The Agency receives the drugs on trust and any PHC whose Head does not do the needful and the drugs expires, will be made to pay.”
On the alleged recruitment of unqualified mid-mives in the state’s PHCs, Ezenyimulu also dismissed the allegation as baseless, stressing that the 60 ad-hoc mid-wives newly engaged to assist in improving healthcare delivery services were all qualified.
She further revealed that over 60 Primary Healthcare Centers had been renovated by the government, adding that more were still underway.
Commissioner for Health, Dr Vincent Okpala, represented by the Director, Public Health and Disease Control, Dr Uchechukwu Onyejembe emphasized that family planning services in the state were free of charge.
