By Kemi Olatunde

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Ondo State Primary Health Care Development Agency has commenced a 12-day training of trainers on Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services ( CHIPS) in Akure.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Permanent Secretary of the Agency, Dr Francis Akanbiemu said the training of trainers became imperative to cascade the programme and replicate the knowledge gained to the CHIPS agents at the local government levels.
Dr Akanbiemu, who was represented by the Director, Community Health and Education, Dr Samuel Abiona, advised the trainees to take the training seriously as government may require their services to implement the Community Health Influencers, Promoters and Services (CHIPS) at any capacity.
On selection of eligible participants at the training, the Permanent Secretary said participants were drawn from relevant fields of maternal and child health including nutrition, and health education among others.
He said the concept of CHIPS which is a brain child of National Primary Health Care Development Agency was to make Primary Health Care more accessible to the people at the community level through the health influencers, promoters and services.
According to him, a CHIPS agent will cover between 200-300 households, while 2 Community Engagement Focal Persons engagement person will supervise 10 CHIPS Agents in a ward.
Speaking on programme implementation plan, he said the programme will be implemented at the community level through identified stakeholders within the wards and community structures in the state.
According to him, the work plans have been drawn, advocacy visits have been paid to the local government areas, and the local government focal persons have been constituted while the selection of the CHIPS Agents would be done after the training of trainers.
In his speech, the representative of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Mr Robert Fagun said the programme was specifically designed to have a holistic plans for primary heath care development at the grassroot.
He noted that Nigeria contributes 1 out of 10 maternal deaths globally and 1 out of 7 child deaths. The CHIPS programme therefore seeks to improve these poor maternal and child health indices.
Mr Fagun said the programme would collate data of facilities in a location, number of children immunised, number of pregnant women attending ante-natal and so on for proper health plans and implementations.
The representatives of Jhpiego and W.H.O that spoke at the training pledged the supports of their organisations to the success of CHIPS programme in Ondo State.