The Northwest Fund for Health Promotion has adopted over FCFA 1.2 billion as operational budget in income and expenditure for 2015.

The budget was adopted during the 2nd General Assembly meeting of the organisation that held on December10 in Bamenda.

During the meeting, an elaborated strategic plan for 2015-2017 was also presented and adopted, which has to be implemented by the stakeholders to improve on the health of patients in the Northwest.

For the Northwest Regional Fund for Health Promotion to be efficiently utilised, members agreed that it would be necessary for the technical and financial Partners to “clarify their areas of intervention as regards the funds.

The Principal Technical Advisor to the Fund from the German Technical Services, GIZ, Marc Ramackers, announced the extension of the Fund for Health Promotion to seven other regions.

“Apart from the Northwest and Southwest Regions, the fund will cover nine other Regions before the end of 2015. This is an indication that we are moving in the right direction,” Ramackers said.

He said another innovation this year, will be for a dialogue structure in drugs distribution and stocktaking from Districts Health Areas to the Regional Delegation to avoid drugs being stockpiled and getting expired before they are used.

“We are going to shift a little from managing and distributing drugs, to performance base on health promotion mechanisms by introducing family planning and reproductive healthcare,” Ramackers stated.

The GIZ Technical Advisor urged stakeholders of the Fund to advocate through the management of the Fund to enable dialogue structures have a budget for it activities to run smoothly. He said, with the new monitoring and evaluationsy stems put in place, good governance practices will, definitely, be respected.

The Inspector General at the Northwest Governor’s Office, Charles Ivo Makoge, praised the Fund for constant supply of drugs to Health Districts in the Region and for fighting against maternal and neonatal mortality and expanding the Obstetric Kits Projects from 30 to 99 health units in the Northwest Region.

“I want to congratulate you for efficiently managing public health programmes like provision of HIV/AIDS medicines, subsidising essential medicines, support in the monthly national immunisation days, management of anti-tuberculosis and the distribution of Mectizan to fight onchocercaisis.”

The Administrator of the Northwest Regional Fund for Health, Richard Mbarika Fondoh, said the Fund will continue to promote its core values which include collaborating with all stakeholders, performance-based decision making, effective communication, transparency and good governance and partnering with organisations to improve on the health of the population.

Commenting on the donation of delivery beds to Azire Integrated Health Centre worth FCFA 1.5 million, Mbarika said the his organisation solely funded the Azire Health Centre in order to decongest the Bamenda Regional Hospital.

“Azire Health Centre stands tall when it comes to contributions and transparency to the Fund and they are the highest; reasons why we had to lend them this support,” he remarked.

The Northwest Regional Delegate for Public Health, Dr. Victor Ndiforchu, urged other health centres to emulate the example of Azire Health Centre to attract more assistance from the Fund.