On Thursday, the National Economic Council greenlit plans to renovate 17,000 primary and 774 secondary healthcare centers across the country.
The National Economic Council said this comes as a reaction to recognized financing shortages and declining healthcare statistics Prof. Ali Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, presented.
Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, explained the administration’s blueprint to State House Media following the 137th session of the National Economic Council chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima in Abuja’s Aso Rock Estate.
Relaying takeaways from Prof. Pate’s address emphasizing the health sector’s critical status, Governor Bala Mohammed remarked: ‘The presentation…dissected in terms of very robust sector scan on health, from the tertiary to the primary level, looking at all the gaps, the problems and challenges of funding.’
He bemoaned the bleak numbers exhibiting falling health metrics like infant mortality rates, saying the Tinubu administration seeks to build collaboration between stakeholders to enact profound, enduring reforms.
Therefore, he announced that the scope of the renewal of the programme intends to ‘service 17,000 primary health centers to be put on a threshold of viability, 774 secondary facilities, that is hospitals, in addition to some tertiary institutions.’
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This comprehensive plan is designed to ‘make sure medicare is brought close to the majority of Nigerians,’ Mohammed added.
On the source of funding, Governor Mohammed revealed that ‘suggestions were made…that we could use some taxes from communication, from airlines, as well as our taxes from the state government’ to bridge the financial gaps plaguing the healthcare system.
Highlighting the critical shortage of healthcare professionals, he also pointed out the ‘huge problem of human capital and attrition of experts,’ stressing the necessity of developing strategies to retain local talent.
The Governor said, ‘certainly, we have a huge problem of human capital and attrition of experts and the need to develop a strategy to retain our experts to care for our health sector.’
‘So the presentation is a robust compact that looked at all the problems and challenges of the health sector, from financing, the human capital, from the supervisory point of view, and even on the leadership level, from the presidency to the local governments and the need for us as governors, local government even media, to put interest in the health sector.’
Governor Mohammed said the council’s finding includes an approaching World Health Organization compact agreement happening on December 15, 2023 where “Each state governor will endorse a compact on service levels.”
This, according to him, stresses the communal pledge to fund and focus on health services.
Though banning emigration is impossible, Mohammed outlined how Nigeria’s democracy can nonetheless implement plans to control the loss of healthcare professionals abroad over time.
That said, he implored some nationalism from Nigerian healthcare workers, citing the health minister who Mohammed said deserted a wealthier Global Vaccines and Immunology Alliance office to aid his country instead.