C'River partners USAID on VVF, opens centre

RESPITE may have come the way of over 150,000 Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) patients as the Cross River State government, in conjunction with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), at the weekend opened a VVF Centre at the Ogoja General Hospital.With the new facility, it is hoped that Nigeria, which at the moment has 12,000 new cases of VVF annually and a backlog of about 150,000, are expected to benefit.The centre, which is the ninth in the country, is expected to contribute to the treatment of about 4,000 fistula cases handled by specially trained medical practitioners through the help of USAID.The VVF scourge is the occurrence of abnormal hole between the bladder or rectum and the vagina that is characterised by continuous and uncontrollable leakage of urine following childbirth.The Country Manager, Fistula Care Project of USAID, Iyeme Efem, said the Ogoja centre was the second to be established with the collaboration of the agency in the southern part of the country.Other states where the centre had been established in collaboration with the respective governments are Kano, Kwara, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Ebonyi, Bauchi and Sokoto.He, however, noted that the sustainability of the project, which involves the special training of medical personnel and provision of surgery equipment to handle the rising cases of Fistula, was of concern to USAID and expressed optimism that Cross River State had shown commitment to sustaining the centre at the expiration of USAID's partnership by 2015.Governor Liyel Imoke, who opened the centre, said his administration had resolved to ensure that it achieved the 2015 Millennium Development Goals target through successes in the primary healthcare service delivery.'One of the things we want to achieve is success in the primary healthcare service delivery. We have placed priority on this not because we need donor attention but because we are committed to healthcare delivery. We have pegged 2015 to deliver the MDG', he stressed.On the issue of sustainability of the project, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Angela Oyo-Ita, said the state would focus on ways of preventing further cases of VVF through easy access to various primary healthcare delivery centres in the state.
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