Persistent evidence-based advocacy pays as the Taraba state government launches the domesticated Task Shifting Task Sharing policy for essential healthcare services in the state. The policy was launched on Thursday 12^th December 2019 at the state’s Ministry of Health in Jalingo.

The domestication and launching followed over a year of advocacy visits by the dRPC-PAS sub grantee in the state, the Women and Child Health Empowerment Foundation (WACHEF), under the Partnership for Advocacy in child and family health At Scale (PACFaH@Scale), to the state ministry of health, where consultations with a wide range of stakeholders led to the composition of a TWG that developed the TSTS document. The process was rounded up with a validation meeting on the policy document and the accompanying Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).

The Challenge

• Shortage of adequate manpower for Human Resource for Health in Taraba state
• Poor  access to pregnant women in hard-to-reach areas in Taraba
• Absence of clearly outlined tasks that can be performed by different cadres of frontline health care workers
• Absence of legal framework for empowering community health workers (CHOs and CHEWs) to provide quality maternal and newborn care services, especially at PHCs

With this launch, the human resource for health in Taraba state will get a boost as other categories of health workers will not be empowered to provide services to the teeming population in the state and these identified challenges will be mitigated.

The Launching

The launching of  the document brought various stakeholders in the health sector of Taraba state. Amongst them are, the Permanent Secretary, TMoH, officials of the state primary health development agency, TSPHCDA, Rector and staff of the College of Science and Technology, Taraba State Health Systems Management Board, Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Nurses and Midwives Association, NANNM, CSO, Development Partners, and the Media.

Next Steps

With the domestication and launching of the TSTS document in the state, stakeholders have made the following their next line of action as they continue to move forward in the implementation of the document.

• Plan more advocacies to ensure implementation of the domesticated and launched policy
• Cover the training gabs within the ranks of a lower cadre of health workers
• Train Community Health Workers (CHEWs) on emergency life-saving skills and LACK
• Train CPs and PPMVs on the provision of other services
• Supervision and monitoring of lower cadre health workers in the state