By Amos Tauna
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), has continued to express worry over the numerous challenges facing primary health care in Nigeria such as poor legal and regulatory framework, as well as economic and social culture.
Others are, dearth of infrastructure, inadequate Personnel, inadequate equipment, poor funding and lack of political Commitment from government.
It was against this background, the CSO organised a media workshop in Kaduna on basic healthcare funding in Nigeria with a view to exploring ways of ensuring qualitative health care delivery at the grassroots
The workshop was entitled ‘Unlocking potential from primary health care through investigative journalism; and financing for primary health care: harnessing domestic funding opportunities, enabling policies and legislation’.
Speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Musa, said the only way government could make head way towards solving these problems, was to pay serious attention to the implementation of health policies and redeeming the pledges at all levels.
The programme manager, Health, Human Development and Social Inclusion, Chioma Kanu, while speaking on unlocking potential from primary health care through investigative journalism, challenged journalists to rise to the task of investigation, to know the attendance of patients, accessibility and affordability of service delivery obtained at the primary health care centres.
She was of the belief that journalists should be able to identify wrong doings in governance and other human endeavour towards handling the operations of primary health care centres in the country.
The aim of the investigation, according to her, was to unearth issues that impede effective service delivery with a view to ensuring that the right thing is done.
According to her, there was the need to investigate both the government and private sector with a view to raising public awareness and the consciousness of the people on issues around them and insist that the right thing was done.
The programme manager maintained that the aim was for journalists to bring everything to the knowledge of people and ensure that a better primary health care services was rendered to the people across the country.
Dr. Muhammad Muhammad Saleh of the Mandela Washington Fellow Civic Leadership who spoke on ‘Financing for primary health care: harnessing domestic funding opportunities, enabling policies and legislation, observed that poor funding of primary health care management has been the obstacle to qualitative health care service delivery in the country.
Being the first place of contact by individuals, family or group of people, he noted, primary health care service supposed to be affordable, accessible, available and of quality to the common man.
The service, he added, supposed to protect every citizen and ensuring that people do not pay out of their pockets, lamenting that because of its poor funding, only few could afford to attend hospitals for treatment.
Sule lamented that there were segregation in the health sector due to inadequate service delivery. “The only remedy is to have good, affordable, qualitative and available health care services, as well as other services associated to it.
Dr. Saleh opined that the budget allocated to the health sector was far below the international standard. “Nigeria has not been able to meet the Abuja declaration made towards enhancing health service delivery in the country.
Until the right thing was done, he said, Nigerians would continue to suffer for lack of affordable, accessible and available health service delivery in the country.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/05/14/health/nigeria-review-primary-health-care-under-one-roof-law-in-katsina-stakeholders-task-assembly-suggest-representation-of-women-traditional-religious-leaders-on-the-board/
