HEFAMAA monitors 932 health facilities, shuts 10 substandard facilities

The Lagos State Health Facilities Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) on Thursday said its accredited franchisees monitored 932 health facilities across the state in the last three months.

The agency said 10 substandard health facilities were shutdown in the process for not addressing identified infractions.

The Executive Secretary, HEFAMAA, Dr. Abiola Idowu, who spoke at the mid-term review of the activities of the franchisees, held at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ikeja, said recruiting the services of the seven franchisees had really improved the efficiency of the agency in monitoring the activities of health facilities in the state to ensure they meet up with standard.

According to Idowu, “The reason why we’re having the programme is to do a review of our processes in terms of the franchisees initiative. We started late last year. So we want to know the challenges of our franchisee agents when they’re visiting these health care facilities under the regulation of our agency.

“We want to know where they think that the agency can step in and we want to also chart a course of the whole process, after we have reviewed the findings that we are discussing here today. So in totality, looking at the general programme, we’re seeing an improvement in the efficiency of, in terms of the mandate of the agency, in terms of the coverage, we’re really very excited.

“We’ve been to so many facilities in the space of three months. We’ve been able to visit over 900 facilities, usually in a year, we visit a little over 1,000, but just in the space of three months that we engaged franchisee organizations, we’ve been able to visit at least 932 facilities and we’ve been able to, not only visit once but revisit to let them know, for example, if the facilities need corrective actions.

“And we also do spot checks as an agency just to confirm that or verify what the franchisees have told them or told us in terms of the infractions that they have observed at this facilities.”

Idowu disclosed that 50% of the health facilities visited had been issued one instrument or the other, for not meeting up to full standard.

“Yes. We have found, generally, about 50% of the facilities visited have been issued one instrument or the other, we normally issue either reports or findings where they issue a report to the facility telling this facility what they have found and what they want the facility to correct in terms of infraction, or we issue them noticed in terms of non-compliance, meaning that the facility is not in compliance with the set standards of the agency or an outright closure notice, when the facility has major infractions.

“The major infractions are when you are not registered, when you’re not documented with government, it means that we don’t know what you’re doing in that facility. We’re not sure you are giving adequate quality care to the citizens of Lagos State and then when there are unqualified persons, or they’re not medical staff,” she explained.

She disclosed that 10 facilities were shutdown, adding that the franchisee scheme was still in the pilot phase.

“What we are doing in this phase is to try to get the health care providers get use to the standards that have been set and also get use to our agents,” she said.

Idowu added that the target set for the franchisees was for them to monitor at least 3,800 facilities in one year, with a minimum target of 600 for each franchisee.