By Julie Ekong
The Society for Family Health will tomorrow begin a retreat to commemorate it’s forty years of supporting Nigeria in its quest to achieving good health care delivery system.
The event which marks the end of the operation of SFH strategic plan, facilitating people – centred Health care and heralds the development of a new strategy for the next generation which will be the basis of the operations of the organisation.
The president, Board of SFH, Professor Ekanem Ikpi Braide, said, the retreat was to pause, reflect, unlearn, learn and re- ignite collective purpose to finish the job already started working with partners.
In a statement, the Managing Director, SFH, Dr Omokhudu Idogho, explained that the next strategy would leverage on the forty years experience the organisation gathered to re- write the constructs of Africa Health System with a clear focus on stronger partnership, forward thinking science and an untiring commitment to transform health outcomes for all.
” This anniversary is unique opportunity to tell our stories and celebrate the people we serve, our donors and our government”. Dr Idogho
The statement also says, in the last forty years, SFH has contributed immensely to Nigeria’s health sector achievements including the reconstruction of maternal mortality from 1,000 per 100,000 Live births in 1985 to 512 per 100,000 Live births in 2001 and infant mortality rate from 132 per 1,000 in 1985 to 54 per 1,000 Live births in 2022.
Dr Idogho noted that SFH has been a leader in Family Planning, HIV/AIDs, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Nutrition, Hypertension, Diabetes and COVID among others.
The release stated that, the Chief Executive Officer, Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, Lagos and Ekiti state Commissioners for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi and Dr Oyebanji Filani, technocrats and government officials will be addressing the gathering.
Leaders of SFH branches in the four Anglophone West African nations, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and the host country Nigeria will be attending the two – day retreat.
