Hacey Set to Extend Interventions to Family Planning, Immunization, Others in Oyo

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

Hacey Health Initiative, has assured of its commitment to continue to work on scaling up its medical and healthcare interventions beyond the 95 facilities it is currently working across Oyo State.This is just as it said its current intervention in 21 out of the 33 local government areas is to be expanded to reach more council areas expanding the scope, particularly its platforms to offer other health services such as family health planning, immunization among other aspects of general healthcare for women and young people across the state.
The Executive Director of the non-governmental organisation, Rhoda Robinson, made the disclosure while speaking after a tour of the Idi Ogungun Primary Health care facility, Agodi Gate, Ibadan, to interact with healthcare workers and pregnant women at the facility.

The NGO had in company of the Intellectual Property Research Deployment (IPRD) Solutions New York, alongside other partners and key stakeholders, visited the project facility to access and see firsthand how interventions deployed are put to use especially in a bid to improve maternal health outcomes in Oyo State.

According to her, “As you know, we are in the digital age and digital technology can make so much things easier and so we are planning on scaling up the intervention, not just in the 95 facilities that we are currently in, but to cover more local governments.

“The intervention is currently running in 21 out of 33 local governments in the state, so we are hoping to reach other local governments, scale up the programme and platform itself so that it can include other health services such as family health planning, immunization and other aspects of general healthcare for women and young people especially the general community.

“This is something we are so eager to work with the government with and we are hoping that going forward, as we engage other stakeholders in talks, discussions and dialogues that we will be able to chat a better way forward, especially with improved technology, improved data collection and analysis.

“We have been working with the government and we have started working on this plan. The pre-covid, covid and post covid era and our current realities, we are committed, the government is committed and we are not in a rush to throw out a solution and walk away.

“We are in for the long haul and we understand that these things takes time, and as long as we are working together, we should see great outcome coming out by the end of this year, and since it is a long term thing, we have different milestone and designated period in our timeline and our ultimate goals which is improvement of the facilities.”

Speaking on the tour with the partners, Robinson said the purpose is to seek how the effort can be improve as well as facilitate more cordiality between healthcare workers and pregnant women access Antenatal care in the facilities.
“Hacey Health Initiative and Partners, IPR Solution, have been working with the Oyo state government since 2020 to improve maternal health service provision in the state and our intervention basically including data and technology to improve maternal outcomes.

“This visit is one of our field visits to see how our interventions, called the `Impact Health Project`, a mobile and web platform designed to facilitate (for now) Antenatal care workflow and care plan for pregnant women. The visit is to see and interact with health workers, pregnant women and see how best our interventions have been progressing and how best (from their point of view) we can improve it and make it work better for the intended users, both the health workers and pregnant women.

“So, its more like a feedback session and an experiential learning session for both parties to understand how best to improve maternal health in the state.

“One of the main things we have learnt was that everybody is working together to make sure that mothers have premium healthcare and they are able to live healthy life especially with their children and they are able to give birth in good condition basically and with the use of mobile technology, we found out that everybody is willing and open to work with it and that there are still a lot of ways it can be applied to other areas of healthcare within the system and especially the learning about the different causes that are involved and the different people that are working in healthcare for the community.

“It is easier to see how best we can plan a scale up so that it covers more health focus areas and it is able to work with different aspect and different people within the system.”
The Chief Nursing Officer/Matron-in-charge, Idi-Ogungun PHC, Mrs. Christiana Fatumobi, while reacting to the visit and the various interventions, said the interventions have helped project the facility and upgrade it to international standard through the use of technology.

While soliciting for more support for mostly poor pregnant women accessing the facility, she pointed out network challenge by service provider as the only issue encountered once in a while when the technology is deployed.

Hacey Health Initiative is a development organization focused on improving the health and productivity of vulnerable and underserved populations in Africa. In the past 14 years, the organization has worked with UNFPA, Path USA, Empower UK, Amplify UK, the Nigerian government and other private sector partners to implement various girl child and women’s rights related projects in the areas of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and sexual violence programs.