Dr. Salma Anas-Ibrahim, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Advisor on Health Matters, stated that Nigeria’s inadequate focus on primary healthcare increases the country’s morbidity and death rate, particularly from pregnancy-related illnesses.
Additionally, according to Anas-Ibrahim, the obstacles to lowering the number of maternal and infant deaths are still related to the PHC system’s poor performance, which includes, among other things, low coverage of community and household-level interventions, inadequate service delivery systems, and low healthcare coverage for interventions that could save lives.
She made this statement on Friday in Nasarawa State during the seventh annual conference of the Association of Nigeria Health Journalists, which was organized in association with the World Health Organization.
She contends that the PHC is the hub of a robust health system and that it ought to be designed to provide services that both provide health security and help achieve UHC.
The weakest link in the health service delivery system is the PHC level of care in Nigeria, where it has received the least attention and is still contributing to the burden of morbidity and mortality, particularly from pregnancy-related diseases, the speaker stated.
Read Also: Kogi guber: Dino Melaye speaks on collecting N3bn from Atiku, Dangote
“The role of the PHC in improving access to healthcare towards the attainment of UHC in a holistic, comprehensive, and sustainable manner that would impact on the productive potential of the people for desirous national growth and development of the country.” “In the integrated system that we are promoting, our aspiration is to ensure that as soon as a pregnant woman visits a healthcare facility, the quality and level of care she requires to deliver a healthy child is assured, including the payment for the services she would receive, ensuring that she is covered under one form or another.”
The presidential aide pointed out that Nigeria, which makes up only 3% of the global population, contributes to the burden of maternal and newborn deaths worldwide and accounts for roughly 30% of the world’s failure to eradicate mother-to-child HIV transmission.
According to her, a number of socioeconomic issues contribute to avoidable illnesses and fatalities, such as poverty and limited access to water, sanitation, and hygiene; long travel times to medical facilities and lack of transportation; and generally poor health-seeking behavior brought on by sociocultural and low literacy.
But she added that the current administration is committed to leaving a legacy of a PHC system that can withstand the current challenges of, among other things, inadequate and unequal distribution, inadequate infrastructure, outdated and inadequate equipment, and inadequate and unskilled human resources.
Strong accountability systems and updated collaboration models involving the public and commercial sectors, the media, civil society organizations, development partners, and the government will be the foundation for the interventions’ success, the speaker continued.
