History of Colleges of Health Technology in Nigeria
Colleges of Health Technology (CHT) were first established in the late 1970s as part of Nigeria’s Basic Health Services Scheme to train a new cadre of Public Health Care (PHC) workers to staff the basic health units in the country.
Because Colleges of Health are the only school that train professionals who are close to the grassroots to meeting the health needs of the larger populations at primary healthcare, the focus of WHO has been to ensure they are well paid. That is why you hear names like CONHESS, HATTIS etc.
In 1960, there was no strong focus on health systems development. Policymakers and political actors made efforts to establish and expand healthcare infrastructures with more emphasis placed on curative medicine rather than preventive medicine.
From 1975 to 1980, health system development was initiated with PHC as the cornerstone. The National Basic Health Services Scheme (NBHSS) was developed based on a PHC approach (1). Unfortunately, the NBHSS program could not achieve its goals due to implementation challenges; hence, PHC services were not delivered across Nigeria.
In 1985, Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti was appointed the Minister of Health. Professor Ransome-Kuti adopted PHC in 52 local government areas as models based on the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978.
Source: www.cahst.ng
