By 
Abiodun OBA
The Lagos State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) has embarked on health awareness campaign in local government areas of the state.
shut 99 health facilities in the last eight months for being substandard.
HEFAMAA, Executive Secretary, Dr. Abiola Idowu explained during a sensitisation campaign in Epe, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Wednesday, that the main purpose is to create awareness of the general public.
Idowu said it has been noticed that the public is also a critical stakeholder in the agency’s task but had been generally neglected.
According to her, the agency is now trying to reach out to them through the awareness campaign and through their community leaders and the gate keepers, to let them know the activities of HEFAMAA.
“The main purpose is to create awareness of the general public. We noticed that the public is also a critical stakeholder but we generally neglected them, so we are trying to reach out to them through this awareness campaign and through their community leaders and the gate keepers, to let them know the activities of HEFAMAA.
“What we do is to encourage them to use health facilities that are registered and you can know this by our logo and the certificate of our body displayed outside. We also want them to know that if they have visited any health facility and it is not being operated by qualified staff, they should report to the agency and we will also want to encourage health facilities out there that are not registered to do so,” she added.
Idowu revealed that between January and August 2021, the agencyhad shut 99 health facilities due to non-compliance with the set standard and for not registering with the agency.
“HEFAMAA was established to improve the quality of health care services in Lagos State in both public and private hospitals by enforcing standard and compliance.
“From January to August this year, we have done monitoring in 1,304 facilities, we have been able to shut about 99 health facilities. In the month of August, we shutdown 17 facilities and the main reasons we have shut these facilities was due to non-compliance with the set standard and for some facilities, they are not registered.
“When a facility is not registered, it is operating illegally, then we have also shut down some facilities that do not have the requisite number of qualified staff. We have shut down facilities because they are training auxiliary nurses and these auxiliary nurses will in turn become menace to the society by setting up their own health facilities and practising even though they are not licensed to practice,” she said.
Idowu said the essence of the sensitisation was to carry out awareness campaign in five local governments, saying that the agency had carried out campaigns in Badagry, Ikorodu and now in Epe.
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