HIV/AIDS CONTROL: OGUN COMMISSIONS ONE-STOP HEALTHCARE FACILITY

 HIV/AIDS CONTROL: OGUN COMMISSIONS ONE-STOP HEALTHCARE FACILITY

As part of measures to improve access to health care for all residents, irrespective of their socio-economic status, the Ogun State Government has commissioned a new fully-equipped one-stop comprehensive healthcare facility. 

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Tomi Coker,  who performed the official commissioning of the facility within the premises of the Ogun State Agency for the Control of AIDS (SACA) in Abeokuta, said the feat was jointly facilitated by the government and one of its implementing partners, APIN Public Health Initiative.

Coker, represented by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr. Tayo Lawal, said the One-Stop facility would provide comprehensive services for a Key Population (KP) and those in the correctional centers, who were vulnerable and disproportionately affected by HIV due to risk behaviors, marginalisation, and structural factors like stigmatisation, human right violations, criminalisation among others.

She noted that APIN had been supporting the State since 2018, in the treatment of People Living with HIV, assuring that the facility would reduce the barriers of retention, treatment adherence and provide comprehensive services to meet the diverse needs of KP.

Earlier in his address, the Executive Secretary, Ogun SACA, Dr. Kehinde Fatungase disclosed that APIN had been an implementing partner supporting HIV/AIDS control in the State, saying the collaboration had been robust and productive.

          On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, APIN, Dr. Prosper Okonkwo, represented by the Associate Director, Community and Prevention Services, Dr. Olabanjo Ogunsola, urged the government to consider replicating the One-stop facility in other strategic points in the State to further provide access to care for people in the remote areas.

Okonkwo said his organisation would sustain the partnership in the control of HIV/AIDS in the State for the next five years.

 

Femi Onasanya & Tomi Soremi,

Press Officers, Min.  of Health & SACA.