Residents of Osogbo, the state capital or Osun have expressed satisfaction at the level of success recorded so far as the first round of Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) kicked off state wide.
The exercise which was expected to last for four days started on Saturday 25th of March and would last through Tuesday, 28th of March, 2017.
According to reports obtained by OSUN DON DEFENDER, as early as 8:00 AM, immunisation officials were already at their posts distributing consumables and by 9:00 AM, they had started going from house to house to immunise this children.
One of the officials who spoke with this medium disclosed that, in her area of assignment, there was no hitch recorded because most of the problems they would have encountered had been taking care of during the planning and house marking exercise.
According to the official; Mrs. Oluwakemi Adabayo, they had made sure that every loopholes had been blocked.
“The only problems we had were some old supervisors who just stayed at home during the house marking and planning periods. They did so because they thought that the old system of operation was still going to continue.
“They did not bother to come for any planning meeting and when we got to the field for house marking, they just spoilt everything. Some of them did not even want to take corrections.
“I guess all they are after is the money and not the job at hand. I strongly suggest that for the next round, they should not engage the old hands again but they should be replaced with fresh ones who are ready to do the job”.
Others interviewed berated the state officials for defrauding them of the allowances they were entitled to for the house marking and planning exercises alleging that the supervisors were paid the sum of N11,000:00 for doing virtually nothing but they that were in the sun, going from house to house and marking housesand and sometimes experiencing lack of cooperation from locals in the communities were paid a miserly N3,000:00.
She maintained that many of them in Osogbo rejected the money based on the fact that they were aware that it had been tampered with.
“This is simple sense. The difference is too glaring. N11,000:00 to N3,000:00. We sincerely think we were cheated and we have promptly rejected the money until redress is done”.
They subsequently used the opportunity to call on the authority especially the State Ministry of Health and the relevant agencies to see to the matter and promptly address it.
Meanwhile, some residents of houses visited have complained that vaccinations carried out in many of the houses by the immunisation officials were not correct.
“As at the time they came calling, some of the children and their parents were not at home and the marking they left indicates that they have touched the house and there was no way the immunisation officials were going to come back and complete vaccinating the children that missed out”.
Apart from this, the exercise recorded a success as no incidents were recorded and patents especially mothers cooperated with officials to immunise their children in communities within Osogbo.