73,949 Women  Access FP Services in Niger – Health Commissioner

The Niger State Commissioner of Health, Dr Murtala Muhammad Bagana has said that 73,949 women have accessed family planning services under the Integrat-E Project in the state, with 25,920 recorded as new acceptors across 14 Local Government Areas.

The Commissioner disclosed this while representing the Deputy Governor, Comrade Yakubu Garba at the end-of-project dissemination workshop held in Minna on Wednesday.

 This is contained in a statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the State Ministry of Health, Usman Jibrin Kodo and made available to Journalists on Thursday in Minna.

Murtala Bagana said the intervention generated 26,812 Couple Years of Protection (CYP) and contributed to averting an estimated 7,721 unintended pregnancies during the implementation period.

The Commissioner explained that the project, which brought together government, private-sector health providers, regulators, communities and development partners, was designed to improve access to essential health services, particularly through private-sector providers.

According to him, the project trained 362 private-sector providers, comprising 40 community pharmacists and 322 Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs), across the 14 LGAs.

Dr Bagana added that the intervention also strengthened the capacity of 42 LGA officers responsible for monitoring, family planning and integrated Community Case Management (iCCM), while enabling 109,871 children to receive selected primary healthcare services.

He stressed the need for the state government to sustain the gains recorded under the project, saying the completion of INTEGRAT-E should not mark the end of the progress achieved.

“As Integrat-E comes to an end, our responsibility is to ensure that its gains are not lost,” the Commissioner said.

He said the state would continue to strengthen collaboration with private-sector providers, maintain quality supervision, use health data to guide decision-making and integrate successful approaches from the project into the broader health system.

The Commissioner commended the Gates Foundation for its support, as well as the Society for Family Health, the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, Niger State Primary Health Care Development Agency, LGA teams, community pharmacists, PPMVs, community leaders and other stakeholders for their contributions to the project.

Earlier, the representative of the Gates Foundation, Mrs Rodio Diallo, urged the Niger State Government to sustain and institutionalise the gains recorded.

Mrs Diallo said the project evolved from stakeholder engagement and health-system strengthening into a functional public-private service delivery network linking private healthcare providers with Primary Health Centres across 14 implementing Local Government Areas between January 2022 and September 2026.

She also called on the state government and LGA authorities to integrate family planning activities into existing planning, budgeting, supervision and monitoring structures.

In his welcome address, the Executive Director of the Niger State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Junaidu Inuwa, explained that more than 78,000 women now have access to family planning in the state, a feat he said would be sustained.

Dr Inuwa said aside from services provided in primary healthcare facilities, other services such as community-based primary healthcare, which comprises people in the community and PPMVs, were also part of the intervention.