The Nigerian Red Cross Society has revived its healthcare activities, particularly in the eight frontline local government areas affected by banditry attacks and other forms of insecurity.
This followed the improved security situation in the state occasioned by the dialogue currently going on between Katsina State government and the bandits.
Secretary of the Katsina State Branch of the NCRS, Bala Abdullahi Hussein, told newsmen at a workshop on a refresher training for selected health volunteers and field workers, that the programme was designed to equip the trainees and ensure that they go back to translate the knowledge they acquire to volunteers and other field workers on how to identify related health challenges and forward same for field reports.
He further disclosed that the workshop is also expected to review Year 1 reports and the lessons learnt, as well as identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of the operations of NCRS and to prepare master trainers to conduct refresher training with changes on data collection tool and so on.
He said, “The Year 1 project under review will focuse on indemnified issues on such health challenges including measles, yellow fever, cholera, tetanus and so on.
The NCRS has been complementing the state governments, NGOs and development partners, by assisting in identifying and reporting emerging health issues, as the government cannot be 100% available to address all health issues.”
He further expressed satisfaction with the performance of the volunteers deployed in the affected local government areas, such as Safana, Jibia, Batsari, Kankara and Dan Musa.
“They risked their lives in the face of growing insecurity to look out for these diseases and reported back to us,” he said.
Also speaking at the workshop, a health expert and field coordinator with CDC-AFNET, Samuel Baddung, said the volunteers do not have medical training but were given training to identify and report observed health challenges in their areas.