By Hassan Zaggi
The President Ahmed Bola Tinubu-led federal government will invest massively in the health sector through its health care reform policy agenda.
The Special Adviser to the President on Health, Dr Salma Anas-Ibrahim, disclosed this at the Joint World Health Organisation stakeholders’ feedback workshop on the evaluation of the third WHO-Nigeria country cooperation strategy (2018-2022) and development of the fourth WHO-Nigeria cooperation strategy (2023-2027).
The President’s reform policy, she said, will align with the existing national health plan to improve the health fortunes of Nigerians through investment in governance and leadership, health financing, human resources, equitable, safe, quality service delivery, primary healthcare, secondary and tertiary care facilities, preventive care services, public health emergency preparedness and response, and increased partnership with non-governmental organisations.
The President Tinubu-led government, according to her, is determined to address Nigeria’s lingering healthcare challenges.
This, she said, include inadequate health infrastructure, fragmentation, an overburdened workforce, poor insurance coverage, high maternal mortality, inadequate preventative care, and dependence on imported medicines, vaccines and equipment.
According to her: “There will be a governance and leadership structure for the health sector which makes it more responsive and accountable with proper coordination and alignment mechanisms across the levels of care that has both political and institutional commitment.
“There will be health financing through increased budgetary allocations to high-impact health interventions and national health insurance cover for at least, 40% of the population in the first 2 years of the administration that would be augmented with the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) and Vulnerable Group Fund (VGF).
“We are all aware that Nigeria is currently affected by the brain drain but even prior to the brain drain, our human resources are grossly inadequate, we are not yet there.
“So, efforts will be made towards ensuring that we address issues and enhance the capacity of our training institutions, both private and public sector to step up action and leverage all opportunities that will guarantee sustainable human resources for health at all levels of our healthcare, particularly at the primary health care level in our communities.
“Efforts are ongoing to address a lot of the issues including having one-for-one replacement immediately to replace those that have exited and efforts are ongoing to ensure that we have motivated, vibrant health workers that are retained and those that want to come back can come back and contribute to the health sector development”
Speaking earlier, in his address of welcome, the WHO Representative, Dr Walter Mulombo, insisted that the review was spectacular, as, according to him, it comes during a political transition in the country which provides a potential policy change and transformation window given the opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the primary healthcare reimagining programme, the National Health Insurance Authority Act, and the Presidential Health Reform Programme.
“As the development of a new CCS usually follows a robust consultative process, we have engaged with your good selves over the past few months, trying to understand what we have done well, the areas we have not done well, and pointers to the priorities in the coming five years.
“One key recurring challenge thrown at WHO during this ongoing review is the need for WHO to be more innovative and agile to adopt a stronger coordination role as the leading authority in health in support of the country and other partners,” he said.
