By Philip Yatai

The State Government said on Monday that it would recruit 18 nutritionists in the planned recruitment of 3,059 health workers for its 255 functional Primary Health Centres (PHC) project.

The Executive Secretary of the state’s Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Hamza Abubakar, made this known in Kaduna, when nutrition partners paid him an advocacy visit to push for improved nutrition funding.

The nutrition partners namely Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Save the Children International (SCI), and Alive and Thrive (FHI360), including UNICEF had been pushing for improve nutrition funding in the state.

Abubakar explained that the step was to improve access to quality nutrition services, particularly in rural areas as part of efforts to curb the disturbing indices of malnutrition in the state.

He said that nutritionists were not initially part of the human resource considered for the 255 PHCs but was considered following their critical role in winning the fight against malnutrition.

He also promised that the agency would consider the creation of a budget line for nutrition intervention in the agency as recommended by nutrition partners in the state.

Earlier, Malam Isah Ibrahim, Nutrition Advocacy Adviser, Save the Children International, noted that none of the 255 PHCs has a trained nutritionist that would provide professional services.

Ibrahim had called on the state government to recruit nutritionists in the planned recruitment of 3,059 health workers for the one PHC per ward initiative.

He also called on the PHCDA to ensure nutrition related budget line to enable the agency implement specific nutrition interventions currently supported by development partners.

“We are also urging the PHCDA, as a major implementer of primary health care services to establish a nutrition department in the agency for effective development of nutrition programmes and implementation. 

“We equally want the state government to ensure that PHC workers are properly trained on the integrated delivery of nutrition interventions for maximum impact,” he said.

Also, Mr Silas Ideva, State Coordinator, Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), pointed out that nutrition funding to implement the policies and other nutrition programmes has remained weak.

Ideva, who was represented by CS-SUNN’s Chairman, Sub-Committee on Finance and Fund Raising, Abdulrahaman Mikail, warned that malnourished children in the state would continue to die if funding remained law.

He commended the state government for the increase attention to nutrition issues, adding, however, that much could be achieve if funding was increase and allocated funds were release on time.