NEWISSUES
The Nigerian Government through the Federal Ministry of Health and Plan International has harped on the need for up to date data in the health sector.
The Ministry has also announced plans to review of the National Health Management Information System, NHMIS.
The Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Chris Isokpunwa, said data is important in measuring health sector indicators.
Noting that the health sector needs the right indicators, Isokpunwa stressed that it cannot be gotten without the right data to report accurately.
“We need accurate data to crash maternal mortality. We want to know how many children are immunised,” he said at a five-day workshop in Abuja.
“NHMIS is critical for us to know whether we are making progress or not,” he said.
He said everyone involved in the health sector must take the workshop as a matter of national assignment to address challenges in the sector.
Also, the Head of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Mr Adeola Jegede, said that relevant data would provide holistic decisions in the health sector.
“There is a current drive by the current government to ensure that there are improvements in the health indicators.
“And for you to be able to make the right decisions at the right time, you need to have the tools that will gather the relevant data on identified indicators that are useful in the health sector,” he said.
The Director, Programme Quality and Influencing, Plan International Nigeria, Helen Idiong said that supporting the Federal Ministry of Health was necessary to gather relevant data for indicators in the sector.
Idiong said the review meeting, spearheaded by the health ministry would help to come to speed with what is happening globally.
“There are a lot of things that changes, we have new infections coming up and so it only makes sense for an organisation to keep reviewing its processes to be in tandem with what is available globally.
“So for us as plan international Nigeria, ours is just to support because we understand the importance of data and adequate data capturing to the work that we do .
“You cannot be speaking to government without having data to back it up so that is why plan is supporting the FMH to review the tools that are for the NHMIS,” she said.
She called for more work in the area of data collection that would inform decision making.
Idiong criticised the move to marry off 100 girls by the Niger State Government, noting that the decision would mar the progress of those girls.
According to her, available data shows that of the 18 million out-of-school children, 60 per cent are girls.
“We have made a lot of progress but we can do better than we are currently. In some areas you look for data you may not actually find and in some you find .
“Who knows the impact of the 100 girls that are about to be married off in Niger state, what can we say about the state of the girls in a particular location in Nigeria.
“We don’t have those up to date data and for us that is something that is very important because an harmful social norms hide and thrives when we don’t have enough data to back it up,” she added.
