The Enugu State Government has directed newly inducted National Health Fellows to operate as undercover monitors at primary healthcare centres and expose absentee health workers, poor service delivery and other lapses in the state’s healthcare system.
The government said the fellows must go beyond routine monitoring by visiting health facilities, identifying gaps and reporting officials and workers whose actions undermine the delivery of healthcare to residents.
The directive was given on Wednesday during the graduation of the pioneer cohort and the onboarding of the second cohort of the National Health Fellows Programme in Enugu State.
Representing Governor Peter Mbah, the Commissioner for Labour and Productivity, Dr Felix Nnamani, charged the fellows to serve as watchdogs over the state’s primary healthcare system.
Nnamani said the fellows, recruited across the country’s 774 local government areas, had been empowered to independently identify deficiencies in healthcare facilities and escalate their findings to relevant authorities.
“You are now the police. Government has identified this gap, so that’s why they recruited you at the federal level. You are now authorised to disguise, go there, identify the gaps, and report to the appropriate quarters,” he said.
He urged the fellows to be bold enough to question officials and demand explanations whenever they discovered failures at health centres.
According to him, establishing healthcare facilities across communities would amount to little if health workers were absent from their duty posts.
He noted that the state government had established primary healthcare centres across more than 260 electoral wards but expressed concern over the availability of personnel to operate the facilities.
“Health centres, the government have been able to put that. Primary healthcare centres scattered across 260 electoral wards and more, still ongoing. But I can tell you, if you take for instance what was there on the ground, you see there are no health workers there,” Nnamani said.
The commissioner further alleged that some workers collect salaries from local government authorities without regularly reporting to the facilities where they were posted.
He charged the fellows to expose such practices and strengthen transparency, accountability and traceability in the management of public healthcare resources.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. George Ugwu, said the fellows would become the “eyes and ears” of the state government across its healthcare facilities.
Ugwu said the fellows would specifically monitor the functionality of the Type 2 Special Primary Healthcare Centres being constructed by the state government in every ward.
Their responsibilities, he said, would include monitoring the availability of drugs, healthcare personnel and other essential services in the facilities.
“We are going to use them to help us in monitoring the level of functionality, the availability of drugs, and the availability of health staff in each of these Type 2 Primary Healthcare Centres,” Ugwu said.
The commissioner disclosed that the state government had approved the recruitment of more than 2,000 primary healthcare workers.
He said the health fellows would also monitor the deployment and performance of the new recruits to prevent absenteeism and ensure that public health workers serve in the communities where they were posted.
“We don’t want a situation where somebody will be living in Lagos and claim that he is working in our primary healthcare centres,” Ugwu said.
Ugwu said the fellows were selected through a competitive process and not political patronage.
He explained that applicants applied online and underwent interviews involving traditional rulers, international partners and academics before the final selection.
He charged the fellows to justify the confidence placed in them by maintaining professional standards and producing credible reports on the state of healthcare facilities.
The commissioner said the programme would also improve coordination among local, state and Federal health authorities by ensuring that challenges identified at the grassroots were promptly escalated for intervention.
Ugwu also disclosed that malaria prevalence in the state had dropped from 24.9 per cent to about 9.9 per cent, attributing the improvement partly to free malaria testing and treatment and other interventions.
He said the government was targeting a further reduction of malaria prevalence to below five per cent.
The commissioner added that the state was collaborating with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to strengthen disease surveillance and health security.
The National Health Fellows Programme was established by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare under the Sector-Wide Approach in 2024.
The one-year programme is designed to equip young Nigerian professionals with skills in leadership, public health, health management, data utilisation, evidence-based decision-making, innovation, stakeholder engagement and community mobilisation.
The pioneer fellows undertook practical assignments covering health programme monitoring, data management, performance reviews, programme coordination and the harmonisation of facility business plans at the local government level.
They also developed capstone projects addressing maternal and neonatal health, mental health, digital health, sanitation, hygiene, disease prevention and community health education.
Meanwhile, the State Hospital Management Board, represented by its Director of Medical Services, Dr Nnamchi Vincent Kanayochukwu, urged the graduating fellows to uphold professional ethics and place patients’ welfare at the centre of their activities.
He also advised the incoming cohort to work closely with healthcare workers, facility managers and host communities to develop practical solutions to challenges confronting the state’s health system.
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