The Katsina State Government of Nigeria stated that gunmen, locally known as bandits, have burnt down two primary health centres in the Batsari Local Government Area of the state.
Shamsudeen Yahaya, the Executive Secretary, Katsina State Primary Health Care Development Agency, revealed this to reporters in Katsina on Tuesday, July 5.
As per him, 69 out of over 1,800 healthcare centres in the state were also shut down temporarily because of the insecurity in a few local government areas.
Most of the health facilities in the region were taken over by the wrongdoers, and the solar refrigerators given in such facilities have been changed to use by the bandits.
He further said that the affected primary healthcare facilities are located in various areas of Safana, Jibia, Batsari, Faskari, Sabuwa and a few other frontline local government areas of the state.
Yahaya also added that some of the health workers were abducted but were released later.
The head of the agency stated that the situation has led to a rise in requests for redeployment by health workers in the impacted areas.
However, Yahaya stated that the government had concluded plans to refurbish one health centre in each of the 361 wards around the state of Katsina.
Moreover, he expressed the commitment of the government of the state to finish the rehabilitation of dilapidated health centres in the state.
Yahaya stated that the state government would be recruiting 272 health workers to manage the issue of manpower shortage in the health sector.
Recently, Nigeria has witnessed a rise in attacks by bandits who have created havoc in every state of the country. Particularly, these gunmen kidnap or attack the people of the country and kidnapping is done with the aim of demanding huge ransoms from the families of the people that they have seized.
