Nigeria’s integrated health services impress UN Chief of Staff 2023

Mr. Earle Courtenay Rattray, the UN Secretary-General’s Chief of Staff (COS), praised Nigeria’s integrated health delivery system for providing crucial healthcare to its inhabitants.

Mr. Rattray also praised UN staff’s dedication to Nigeria’s health and sustainable development.

The COS made the comment after the trip while attending Nigeria’s new president, His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s inauguration in Abuja on 29 May 2023.

The COS visited the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and met with government officials, stakeholders, and frontline health workers to see how WHO, UNICEF, and other UN agencies are supporting the Nigerian government and improving global health security and pandemic preparedness.

He learned about WHO’s funding and technical assistance to capacity building, integrated disease surveillance, outbreak response, integrated health services, and how clients receive a continuum of preventive and curative care according to their needs at the Wupa sewage treatment plant and Family Health Clinic.

Environmental monitoring checks wastewater/sewage for poliovirus.

One of three FCT environmental sampling locations is the WUPA sewage treatment plant in Idu, Abuja Municipal Area Council.

The plant manager, Mr. Abubakar Lapai, demonstrated the mimic panel, environmental sample collection, laboratory testing, and WHO-compliant water pre-treatment chambers (inlet to output).

Mr. Rattray was shown the Family Health Clinic’s registry, triage, non-communicable disease screening, maternal, new-born, child health, and community management of malnutrition, cold chain, COVID-19 vaccination, routine immunization, health facility surveillance, and community audio-visual acute flaccid paralysis detection and reporting (AVADAR).

“I’m impressed by disease surveillance,” Mr. Rattray adds after the visit. Zero polio and no child harmed is the objective.

The UN family is financing and advising Nigeria. He said facility administrators and staff enjoy WHO’s capacity building and on-the-job training.