Health workers equipped for quality delivery

By Kemi Olatunde
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As a way of improving the quality health care delivery in the state, Ondo state government has equipped health workers with the necessary skills to resolve conflict which may prevent qualitative service delivery at the various health facilities in the state.

Speaking at a two day Grievance Redress Mechanism( GRM) dissemination workshops which was organised last Wednesday by the Ondo State Primary Health care Development Agency (OSPHCDA), Executive Secretary, OSPHCDA, Dr. Francis Akanbiemu who noted that conflict depletes progress of any society, explained that the training became a necessity in order to record more success in the health system.

According to him, it is important that the people of the state enjoy health care delivery without rancor noting that one of the major principles of Primary Health Care is community participation hence the need to carry the community along especially at the planning in order to ensure proper implementation in the community.

Represented by Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Dr. Yetunde Olagbuji, Akanbiemu who noted that human beings deserve the best in terms of training, however stressed the need for participants to put  the knowledge gained into proper use when conflict arises.

Putting the participants through on the topic, Alhaja Mohammed Khadijat from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, (NPHCDA), described Grievance redress mechanism as an effective tool for early identification, assessment and resolution of complaints on projects noting that it aimed to ensure to establish a prompt, easy to understand, consistent and respectful mechanism to support the receiving, investigating and responding to complaints or grievances from community and stakeholders.

According to her, GRM has been put in place to ensure open channels for effective communication, improve trust and respect, provide structures for raising, addressing and resolving issues and promote productive relationships in the span of project implementation at all levels among others.

Speaking with The Hope,  state Project Coordinator, Nigeria State Health Investment Project(NSHIP), Dr. Paulinus Omode revealed that recently NPHCDA and world bank put in place a GRM document for all NSHIP implementing states to have a committee on GRM and added that training is crucial to ensure that grievances are not escalated to court cases in the health facilities.

The exercise according to him will enable the state have a GRM committee that will over see all grievances both from health facilities and Local Government Area(LGA) level.

He said; “LGA GRM committee will coordinate and manage grievances at the health facility level and within the LGA. Health facility GRM committee will be in charge resolving grievances/ complaints which occur within health facility and the community.”

Describing GRM as first if its kind since inception appealed to the state to take up GRM after the expiration of NSHIP in the state.

A participant who is also the focal person for NSHIP in the state Hospitals Management Board, Dr.(Mrs) Ronke Fagbemi stated that the exercise will go a long way in impacting services in the community saying “it will help with the quality health services we deliver in the facilities.”

Also speaking, another representative from NPHCDA, Mercy Lewis hoped that health workers will understand procedural processes to manage grievances after the training.