By Kemi Yesufu
Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole has expressed confidence that the increased investment in primary healthcare by the Federal Government will lead to a significant improvement in the country’s unimpressive health indices.
Speaking at the official launch of the Technical Support Programme (TSP) of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), the minister disclosed that 64 percent of the ministry’s budget goes to the primary healthcare.
“Investing in PHC is the right way to go. Over the last two years, we have changed the funding structure and the Executive Director (of NPHCDA) will testify to the fact that the agency is gulping the largest chunk of our allocation”, he said.
Adewole stressed the importance of providing primary healthcare services under one roof to achieving Universal Health Coverage. This as he said the Federal Government recognized the need to assist states by effectively coordinating the technical support needed to provide quality healthcare to Nigerians.
He said: “It will also ensure the realization of our goal of one frame work, one implementation plan and one evaluation plan for the Nigeria health sector. As part of the efforts to address the challenges, we approved the establishment of the Technical Support Unit within the NPHCDA and SPHCDA during the last National council of health. The TSP is meant to strenghthen the NPHCDA to effectively coordinate the technical support to the state primary health care board through the Technical Support Programme.”
“As you may be aware, efforts have been made in the recent past to address the challenges facing the health sector and to reverse the trend of the poor health indices that we are noted for government’s interventions have produced a lot of positive results in areas of emergency, preparedness and response. At the last count, Cameroon has shown interest in learning how Nigeria have been able to manage the Lassa fever crisis. In addition, the response to Tuberculosis, polio eradication and our efforts at controlling non communicable diseases to mention but a few. Other initiatives that are bringing remarkable results includes the Saving one million lives initiative, the Nigeria state health investment project, the Basic Health Care Provision Fund which is the toast of the current situation.
“But we must continue to work harder to be an enviable health sector. The Federal Ministry of Health has the key role of formulating and implementing health policies that will ensure the delivery of quality and effective health care services to all Nigerians. To achieve this, Government and partners have developed the National Strategic Development part 11 which is a robust 5 years road map for the Nigeria health sector”.
Earlier in his address, Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shaiub assured that the Federal Government is now better positioned to provide technical assistance to states.
“Today, states continue to struggle with cold chain maintenance, delivery of vaccines in the right quantity, to the right place and at the right time, shortage of human resources for health – just to mention a few.
“The persistence of these challenges clearly highlights the need for the NPHCDA to improve on the delivery of its mandate to provide policy direction, technical and logistics support to states and local government areas (LGAs to implement PHC services across the 36 states and FCT)”, he stated.
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