By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has said that for every Primary Health Care, PHC, closer to the people in communities would reduce catastrophic out -of -pocket medical expenditure and improve the overall health of citizens.
Ehanire said this at the International Press conference ahead of the National Primary Health Care Summit held in Abuja recently.
The Minister explained that on resumption in office as the Health Care system lead in the country, he moved to revitalize the PHC system.
He said, ” The target of at least one functional primary health care centre per political ward was set as a policy to take basic health care closer to the people, reduce catastrophic out-of-pocket spending to ensure resources are freed up for other goods and services, thereby improving overall health and standards of living.”
He noted that the revitalization of the PHC system in the country would reduce pressure on secondary and tertiary levels of medical care to make room for focus on health challenges and research.
Ehanire stressed that the ministry has evolved a 10-year strategy to re- imagining PHC with a 4-point agenda for PHC revitalization.
The 4-point agenda include; access and service delivery of PHC revitalization; health promotion and demand stimulation; programme delivery; and ensuring the right enablers and capabilities are in place to support the delivery, he explained.
In the same way , the Minister disclosed that the nation’s PHC system is further burdened by high disease burden and frequent outbreaks of diseases responsible for avoidable high maternal and child mortality, debility, absenteeism from work and much suffering.
The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency,NPHCDA, Dr.Faisal Shuaib said that the Summit which is coming up on the 25th of March, 2022 is partly a clarion call to leaders, advocates, partners and stakeholders in the Nigerian health sector to re- echo and operationalize the commitment made at Astana.
Through Re- imagining PHC, we will build on our national experience fighting COVID-19- Ebola, Polio, and many other health challenges to implement long- overdue changes that will transform the way health care is delivered in Nigeria, Shuaib said.
“We will restore health centers; ensure provision of general, laboratory, clinic and personnel equipment; ensure the availability of quality drugs; procure ambulances for accessibility and we will train and employ quality nurses, midwives, clinical staff and non-clinical staff at health centers across Nigeria.”
The ED lamented that problems linked to lack of primary health care cause are staggering – they dwarf the impact of COVID-19 on Nigeria’s population.
According to him, 128 of every 1,000 children under 5 in Nigeria die and 20% of global maternal deaths happen in Nigeria.
” It’s heart breaking, and we must treat it as the emergency it is.
Fewer than half of Nigerians have access to quality primary health care services.
Even those that do are offered fragmented and often ineffective services.”
The World Health Organization, WHO, with development partners further urged the Federal Government to adopt a radical approach to restructure Nigeria’s healthcare system via it’s Primary Health Care system.
The agency said that the 2022 National PHC Summit with the theme: “PHC re- imaging, evolving a resident platform for achieving our national and global health goals in a peri- COVID era” is coming at a time when our health delivery system has experienced a severe setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
