Kano Commissioner Assures Domestication, Implementation of Health Promotion Policy

…No any Heath Educator would be replaced – DPH

The Kano State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Abubakar Labaran Yusuf, has assured that the administration of Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf is ready to domesticate, disseminate and implement the health promotion policy.

According to a statement by Ibrahim Abdullahi, Public Relation officer, Kano Ministry of Health, the Commissioner dropped the hint while speaking at a 3-Day Content Generation Meeting for the Strategic Framework for Setting up Health Promotion Mechanisms in Kano State, held in Kaduna State.

Dr. Labaran said that Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf has blueprint since he was vying for governorship position of the state with special focus on health service delivery, stressing that any programme that key into the blueprint would certainly enjoy total support and approval of His Excellency.

He pointed out that accessing funds for programme implementation is easy in the present administration, emphasizing that what is required is for the programme managers to forward an explicit submission and pursue it till it realizes.

The Commissioner then charged the participants to work judiciously and come up with an excellent validated document taking into cognizance the needs of Kano state, assuring that he would take it to the Governor for approval with a view to achieving universal health coverage.

Also speaking, the Director Public Health and Disease Control of the Ministry, Dr. Ashiru Rajab, dispelled the rumours going rounds that the present Health Educators would be replaced when domestication of the health promotion policy is completed.

Dr. Rajab said that what Kano state has is health education whereas, at the global level, countries have transformed from health education to health promotion in order to have an improved health services delivery worldwide.

He revealed that Nigeria, as a country, also joined other countries to transit from health education to health promotion, adding that Kano is one of the few states in the country that is taking action of the transition to ensure the state is transformed to health promotion.

The Director emphasized that the relevance is that health promotion is more encompassing that allows for engaging more stakeholders that have stake in the health and wellbeing of the people of Kano state.

Dr. Rajab then assured health educators working at the state, local government and zonal levels that the rumours is untrue and the ministry wonders from where it emanates, assuring that what state is taking is to ensure all of them are given the chance to bridge their level of education with additional course in health promotion and they would continue with their work as usual.

He added that none of them would be replaced and all of them would be supported by the ministry to bridge the gap, stressing that with their wealth of experience as health educators, it would be easy for them to continue to work as health promotion officers.

Fully supported by the FCDO-Lafiya, the objectives of the meeting include providing the state actors with an overview of health promotion and the revised National Health Promotion Policy (NHPP) 2019 and to develop a shared understanding of the process of domestication the NHPP 2019.

Others is to generate steps for converting into action the Kano state decision to adapt the NPHH 2019 against the backdrop of findings from the assessment of health promotion capacity at state and LGA levels in Kano state and to establish a 12-member Kano State Technical Working Group for Health Promotion (TWG-HP (intended to evolve into the State Health Promotion Forum) to catalyze the deployment of the strategic action points for setting up a functional health promotion mechanism across Kano state.