Communique On The Four-day Congress Of The Society For Environmental And Public Health

COMMUNIQUE ON THE FOUR-DAY CONGRESS OF THE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH OF NIGERIA, IN COLLABORATION WITH ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTITIONERS OF NIGERIA, AND THE CENTRE FOR EPIDEMIOLOGY, TOXICOLOGY, AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, HELD FROM THE 29TH OF JULY TO THE 1ST OF AUGUST 2019 AT THE SENATE CHAMBERS OF THE NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, UNIVERSITY VILLAGE, 91 CADASTRAL ZONE, NNAMDI AZIKIWE EXPRESSWAY, AIRPORT ROAD, JABI, ABUJA. PREAMBLE

The 4-day workshop on “Preventive Healthcare in Nigeria: Everyone, Everywhere, Leaving Nobody

Behind” had as its sub-themes:

Health Promotion and Maintenance: Necessity Today, Essentiality Tomorrow.
Health Transition in Nigeria from Vulnerable Person to Vulnerable Patient. Time to change; our focus is now.
Public and Environmental Health Practice in Nigeria: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse.
Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers: Preparedness and Response in Emergencies.
Making Nigeria Open Defecation Free: The Role of Environmental Health Practitioners.

The first day of business (30th of July) was dedicated to the presentation of lectures on the five sub-themes as listed above. The second business day was used for plenary and special sessions and a workshop on the topic of public health issues.

The conference witnessed active participation of the Academia, Public, and Environmental Health

Practitioners, policymakers, bilateral and multilateral public health agencies, ministries, departments, and agencies across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The Congress took time to X-ray the preventive healthcare system, the primary healthcare system,

Achievements so far, prospects, and challenges.

There was an in-depth discussion on: Public and Environmental Health abuse; Health Promotion and

Maintenance: Viral Hemorrhagic Fever: Preparedness and Response in Emergency Situations.

Participants decried the current trend in preventive health care management in Nigeria, which is contrary to international best practices. The congress identified a lack of cooperation among the clinical and public health workforce as a major challenge to the achievement of preventive healthcare in Nigeria since the Alma-Ata declaration.

The scenario is even made worse as a section of the medical or public health care dominates or usurps most preventive health care programmes, such as one-health initiatives, water sanitation and hygiene (WASH), open defecation, disease control and prevention, etc.

The participants identified

Poor organization of preventive health care programmes
Inadequate or improper training by health institutions
Poor incentives for both trainers and trainees
Inadequate political will to support the preventive health care programme
Inadequate skills and competencies by healthcare workers as militating factors to achieving effective preventive healthcare in Nigeria.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The main recommendations reached from this epoch-making Environmental and Public Health Congress are as follows:

There is an urgent need to bring all the key elements of Environmental and Public Health practice in Nigeria together to promote interdisciplinary, intradisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and multi-sectoral cooperation and coordination to protect and safeguard people in Nigeria.
The government should immediately devote efforts to reorganizing and refocusing our health promotion and maintenance architecture.
The current structure of Public Health disciplines needs to be reorganized for efficient and purposeful service delivery.
The knowledge and skill gap in the delivery of preventive healthcare services due to intra- and inter-professional rancor and rivalry should be urgently addressed.
There is a need to regulate the practice of Public and Environmental Health under one roof; hence, Environmental Health is Public Health.
The activities of Environmental Public health practitioners need to be reorganized and refocused in line with international best practices.
The government should, as a matter of urgency, control the proliferation and fragmentation of professional bodies in Environmental Health and Public health in general.
Based on the above, Government should support the formation of a joint regulatory body for Environmental and Public Health as this will bring harmony and standards and reduce costs in running the regulatory body.
Primary Healthcare should be all-embracing, involving all cadres of health manpower.
Government should reinvigorate Environmental Sanitation, which is pivotal to the reduction and control of infectious, emerging, and reemerging diseases that are rampant in Nigeria.
The core disciplines of Public Health Epidemiology, Environmental Health, Health Promotion, Maintenance, Health Policy and Administration, and Public Health Nutrition should be declared as emergency rescue to solve health problems.
There should be more collaboration in research among the academics in the Health disciplines, as well as leveraging on research funds from local and international research grant-making organizations.
The Society for Environmental and Public Health of Nigeria should digitalize its activities for wider reach and impact.
The Society for Environmental and Public Health of Nigeria.
There is a need to standardize training curricula and personnel qualifications, and specializations in Public Health training institutions.