The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to create necessary environment to enable medical doctors have access to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) healthcare loans.
The President of NMA, Prof. Innocent Ujah, who made the call during a press conference yesterday in Abuja, said that it’s saddened by the mounting difficulties faced by members especially the private health sector organizations in accessing the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) NGR N100 billion health intervention funds contrary to expectations.
He said: “We call on President Muhammadu Buhari, political leaders, strategic stakeholders in the nation’s financial sector and the entire Citizens to prevail upon the Central Bank of Nigeria to soften and modify the conditionalities for accessing the Health Intervention Loan especially given the current state of the nation’s health sector as exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“More deliberate and strategic efforts must be made by governments to ensure the return home of the Nigerian Doctors and other health professionals in diaspora to contribute their quota to the improvement of health care delivery services as well as national growth and development.
“Privileged Nigerians should demonstrate open confidence in the nation’s health care delivery system and as well as patriotism by patronising the services, as we call for the establishment of the National Health Bank in order to fast-track the infrastructure, procurement of the state-of-the equipment which help to provide word-class health care for Nigerians in order to reverse medical tourism.
“We also wish to advice government to procure the vaccines that have been reported to be effective for further research study on Nigerians to confirm their efficacy and safety for the Nigerian populace,” he said.
He appealed to Nigerians to take the COVID-19 prevention advisories very seriously in order to interrupt the transmission, reduce ill-health and deaths from the dreaded disease, adding that the strict adherence to the NCDC protocol of use of face mask, regular handwashing and use of sanitizers and social as well as physical distancing is very strongly advocated.
He further said that serious efforts to prioritize health including supplementary appropriation/budgetary provision should be initiated by government at all levels and the private sector coalitions to ensure the procurement and availability of consumables for effective response in the containment of COVID-19, especially with upsurge of the infection
