By Hassan Zaggi
The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has disclosed that the Nigeria’s health care sector is currently being redesigned and that it will be concluded in the next few months.
Speaking while declaring open the Primary Health Care Summit 2022, in Abuja, Thursday, he disclosed that the Committee on Health Sector Reform that was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari in January this year will soon conclude its work.
“On January 27, the President inaugurated a health care reform committee with representation from the state, health associations and other critical stakeholders. The primary objective is the reengineering of our healthcare delivery system so that it becomes people-centric. A healthcare system that addresses our poor health indices frontally.
“We are expecting in the next few months to see some progress in redesigning our healthcare system with so many good ideas that we already have,” the Vice President said.
He, however, noted that the government cannot fund the health sector alone and therefore, insisted on the need for a compulsory health insurance scheme.
The Vice President further called for the private sector involvement in the provision of primary healthcare services.
“The role of the private sector in the establishment of a chain of primary healthcare centres across Nigeria in all the 774 local government areas and applying market-based reforms to provide low-cost health services to the people and descent staff is an important initiative and it will bring succor to the private sector efficiency into the primary healthcare driven by market ideas,” he said.
Osinbajo further noted that: “For us to achieve an emerging PHC, we have to address out-of pocket expenses to access healthcare and I think we clearly need compulsory health insurance scheme where premiums for certain categories of vulnerable people are paid.
“Our target is the 100 per cent coverage of the poor and vulnerable in a short to medium term. There is no way that health care funding can be paid by the government budgets alone, this is impossible.
“The size of the federal government budget itself is over stretched. We definitely cannot afford to fund health by just budgets and therefore healthcare insurance is an important pool of resources to fund healthcare on a scale that is required for the country to move forward,.
“The second thing is addressing the controversy occasioned by the concurrent constitution status of the primary health care. There is a great need for synergy to prevent a situation where the federal, state and local governments and private persons duplicate primary health care facilities and there is no real planning around what should be where.
“The third is encouraging and supporting serious private sector interventions,” he stressed.
Speaking, the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, said that strengthening the country PHCs will ensure better population health and reduce the workload on secondary and tertiary healthcare levels and also the catastrophic out-of-pocket patient spending on health.
While lamenting that the PHC level has been neglected, with huge consequent negative impact on human capital development, the Minister, however, said: “But we also have opportunities to build back better, with the goodwill and funds that have flowed into the system since then.
“It is in that light that we wish to rebuild our system by correcting the imbalance among the levels of care, beginning with this PHC summit. The Federal Ministry of Health wishes to build on gains of the past and partner with all sectors to achieve national and global targets.”
Ehanire, however, insisted that the fiscal space for health has to be increased at PHC level and that more resources needed to be mobilized by stakeholders and partners to reestablish the PHC system as a versatile platform to deliver a very wide range of valuable services.
On his part, the Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, said that the ‘Reimagining PHC’ programme is solutions-focused and dedicated to delivering improved PHC across the country.
Some of the interventions toward investing in PHC infrastructure across the country, he explained, include constructing and restoring health centers; ensuring provision of general lab, clinic and personnel equipment; availability of quality drugs; ambulances for accessibility; and training and employing quality nurses, midwives, clinical staff and non-clinical staff at health centers across Nigeria.
“Our ambitious, yet deliberate and attainable action plan will transform health in Nigeria over the long term.
“The PHC system is the backbone of health care, we must radically change our PHC to begin delivering quality, accessible care to all Nigerians.
“This change is possible, it’s realistic. We have a deeply flawed and inadequate health system in Nigeria and people are dying because of it. But current challenges can be solved through public-private cooperation in fundraising and execution of the Reimagining PHC programme. Together, we can create monumental impact,” Shuaib said.
