The HCPAN president, while assessing developments in the health sector in an interview with PUNCH HealthWise, said it had become more crucial to invest in the health sector, considering the exposure of the country’s weak healthcare system by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He noted that the health sector had been epileptic in nature, with its budget abysmally low.

According to him, the nation’s health budget had, for long, been hovering between three and six percent, which he said was totally unacceptable compared to obtains in developed countries.

He said the current budget for health in Nigeria was far below the 15 percent recommended by Abuja Declaration in which African countries agreed to allocate 15 percent of their national budgets to health.

It may be recalled that, on April 25, 2001, governments of African countries met in Abuja and agreed to increase health spending to 15 per cent of their national budgets.

Besides increasing budget for the health sector, the HCPAN president said there was also the need to increase budget performance.

He said, “There is need to step up health budget of the country to at least 10 percent of the gross national income, with determined increase in budget performance.

“The health budget is undulating between three and six percent of the gross. How do we marry that with the 15 percent Abuja Declaration?

“Beating Somalia to anything is not a trophy to Nigeria; ours is a nation that should compete potentially with the USA.

“The government needs to encourage public private partnership among the rank and file of health institutions across the country.

“Very important, too, is the need to oil the journey toward universal health coverage while using all veritable tools like the well organised National Health Insurance Scheme to bathe this.”

Despite the establishment of the scheme in 2005, majority of Nigerians do not have access to healthcare as many still struggle to pay out of pocket.

So far, only a fraction of Nigerians are captured in the health insurance scheme.

The latest Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2018 revealed that only three percent (six million) Nigerians have health insurance in a population of over 200m people; even as Ghana currently provides health insurance for about 40 percent of her population.

According to NDHS 2018, 97 percent of Nigerians (about 194 million people) do not have health insurance, thereby resulting in many avoidable deaths when poor Nigerians are faced with health crisis for which they are unable to pay out of pocket.

This figure implies that many children do not have access to health services either, experts say.

Dr. Arigbabuwo, who is also chairman, Nigerian Medical Association Committee on Public Private Partnership, said, “India got her independence in 1947, and the Peoples Republic of China got her’s in 1949.

“Even while India, about 25 years ago, walked same pedestrian with Nigeria, the crawling momentum of the Nigerian State has served as a veritable catalyst to her crippling health sector.

“While the doctor-to-patients ratio was, not too long ago, celebrated at 1:3,600, the story is no more the same together, as there has been massive exodus of health care workers of all cadres.

“The recent pandemic situation made total nudity of the challenged health status of Nigeria and the near poor capacity of her health system,” Arigbabuwo said.

Continuing, he noted, “The health sector has been epileptic in nature, but with some periods of euphoria. There are also some other moments of frank display of failure and abysmally low performance.

“The unstable government and their policies that had intertwined with military and civilian regimes were no good scorecards.

“The maternal death rate is no less than 800 per 100,000 deliveries . What more, Sweden and Finland feel much better with possible single unit (as low as six in 100,000).

“Nigeria’sinfant mortality rate has kept climbing, just as malnutrition and low per capita income are twin partners.”

According to the World Health Organisation, an estimated more than 600 maternal deaths occurred in Nigeria between 2005 and 2015.

Going forward, Arigbabuwo called on the Federal and state governments to provide improved, quality and affordable healthcare for all Nigerians and work toward the attainment of universal health coverage.

The physician also urged the government to honour its agreement with health workers, tackle rape, provide incentives and better remuneration for health workers across all cadres.

source: Punch