By Stanley Nwako
Anambra State has been chosen as a pilot state for a new grassroots healthcare programme aimed at improving primary healthcare, strengthening referral services and helping residents get medical care on time.
The programme is supported by the Mastercard Foundation, mSh Nigeria, the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and other partners, in partnership with the Anambra State Government.
The Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr Afam Obidike, disclosed this during a three-day training programme on Community Based Health Workforce (CBHW) management, held from August 18 to 20, 2026, at the Trig Point Hotel, Amawbia. The training, titled “Leading and Managing Your Community Based Health Workforce (CBHW) Program,” is aimed at improving the skills of Local Government Health Authorities in managing community health workers.
Dr Obidike said every local government in Anambra has a Supervisor for Health who helps coordinate health activities in the area. He said the system would improve accountability and ensure that health services are properly linked from the local government to primary healthcare centres, general hospitals and teaching hospitals.
According to him, the goal is to ensure that when a person in a community needs medical care, there is someone who can identify the problem and help the person get to the right health facility. He added that health workers at primary healthcare centres would be able to contact doctors for advice when they are not sure about how to manage a patient.
The Commissioner said patients who need more serious care would be referred from primary healthcare centres to general hospitals and, when necessary, to teaching hospitals. He described the referral system as important in saving lives and ensuring that patients receive the right treatment at the right time.
Dr Obidike also spoke about the need for proper transportation for patients. He said the state was working to ensure that ambulances and other means of moving patients were available to reduce delays in taking patients from one health facility to another.
He said delays in recognising sickness, deciding to seek treatment, getting to the hospital and receiving treatment can lead to deaths, especially among pregnant women. He said the government was working to reduce these delays through better health education, improved transportation and increased availability of healthcare workers.
The Commissioner announced that the state would soon begin a major health education campaign to teach residents more about diseases, especially non-communicable diseases, and the need to seek medical care early. He said the aim was to remove barriers that prevent people from getting healthcare and reduce maternal deaths.
Dr Obidike said the choice of Anambra as a pilot state was a major opportunity to show that the programme could produce good results. He said the partners were interested in collecting data from the programme to see what works and use the results to improve healthcare programmes in other parts of Nigeria.
Dr Obidike thanked the development partners for their support and urged all stakeholders to work together to ensure that the programme improves healthcare delivery at the grassroots.
Present at the workshop were the Executive Secretary of the Anambra State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Chizoba Ezeasor, and the Permanent Secretary, Anambra State Ministry of Health, Dr Obiageli Uchebo, alongside other health officials, Local Government Health Authorities, Supervisors for Health and healthcare workers.
