Nationwide Inauguration of LGA Health Coordination Units: 34 States Set Up LLMCU.

The Nigeria Supply Chain Integration Project (NSCIP) of the National Products Supply Chain Management Programme in the Federal Ministry of Health has identified the need for better coordination of efforts especially at the service level closest to the average Nigerian healthcare user.

The Local Government level is critical in providing staff that help make health commodities available according to the needs of facilities and also they provide direct leadership to facility staff in the execution of their duties of providing patient satisfaction.

Over the years, health workers have focused in particular areas of care with different public programs like vaccines, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Reproductive health having specific stand-alone staff that all work in parallel.

The implication of this is that the healthcare system at that level as witnessed avoidable wastages from pilferages, expiries and stock outs with facility staff suffering fatigue from the myriad of visits they have to tolerate either from commodity distribution of during monitoring visits.

To curb these challenges, the NSCIP identified the set-up of a coordination arm at the LGA with the initiation of the LGA-LMCU (LLMCU) with membership from all public health disease programs at that level.

This unit will ensure visibility of stock status at that level with members implementing their interventions in an integrated manner thus doing a lot more while saving cost and time.

So far over 34 states of the federation have set-up the LLMCU with the support of the NSCIP and the activity which started in September, 2017 will be concluded before the year ends.

Dr. Ogaba Ogbu

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