Anambra State Government is to intensify the clampdown on illegal private and unlicensed health facilities across the state.

 

The Director of Medical Services, Anambra State Ministry of Health, Dr. Ugochukwu Chukwulobelu stated this during a one-day inaugural meeting of the State Task Force on illegal and unlicensed health facilities held in Awka.

Speaking during the meeting, Dr. Chukwulobelu noted that the onslaught against quackery and illegal medical facilities in the state had been on ever since in the state, but they decided to intensify the fight because of the increase in the numbers of such facilities across the state, hence the task force meeting.

 

According to Dr. Chukwulobelu, the stakeholders meeting which included staff of the ministry of health, the police, legal department, the Nigeria Medical Association, Private medical practitioners among others was to have a roadmap to figure out the approach they can adopt to tackle the ugly menace.

He maintained that the State government cannot allow Ndi Anambra to be dying because of the activities of those who do not mean well for the state, and commended Governor Chukwuma Soludo and the State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Afam Obidike for their support to the task force.

 

The Executive Secretary, Anambra State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Pharmacist Chisom Uchem, noted that quackery is a big problem in health care delivery and revealed that government is training and retraining its staff at all times to ensure that they are of international standards, even as he warned illegal healthcare operators in the state to leave or face the wrath of the law.

The Officer in-charge of Medical Services, Anambra State Police Command, Mr. Emenike Chinenyenwa, who is an Assistant Commissioner of Police, said that police is ready to help in sanitizing the society of all forms of crimes, while the General Secretary, Association of Nigeria Private Medical Practitioners, Anambra State Chapter, Dr. Marcel Ugha, assured that their association is highly supportive of the clampdown on illegal medical facilities in Anambra.