A Consultant Physician, Prof. Akin Osibogun, said that lack of commitment to the implementation of primary healthcare strategy was a major impediment to health development in Nigeria.
Osibogun, who is also the Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, said this in Lagos.
He spoke at a Public Health Colloquium to celebrate the 80th Birthday of Oladipo Hunponu-Wusu, a Professor of Community Health and Primary Healthcare.
“While the government declares its acceptance of primary healthcare as the strategy to achieve health for all Nigerians, it fails to fully implement the basic principles of this strategy.
“Mechanisms for regular policy monitoring and evaluation have not been wholeheartedly activated.
“Furthermore, the imposition of externally conceived and designed structures on local communities without adequate considerations of how such communities will sustain such structures is antithetical to the concept of primary healthcare.
“This is further evidence that the problems of poor health status and inadequate delivery of quality health services to the people are not all due to inadequate allocation of resources to health but due to glaring allocation inefficiencies within the health sector.”
Osibogun said that consideration of healthcare financing should be guided by imperative of the National Health Policy and the primary healthcare strategy.
He said: “Topmost among these imperatives are the issues of cost-effectiveness, quality, equity and relevance.
“Thus, in addressing inequity, public funds must be targeted at the financing of primary and preventive care.
“Within the primary healthcare sector, funds must be used to operationalise the system rather than construct facilities that may not be able to provide drugs and other consumables.
“Its disappearance from health facilities in the past has been partly responsible for the desertion of these facilities by patients.
“Preventive and primary care is cost-effective and provides the opportunity for stretching funds to cover more people.”
Osibogun said that health workers needed improved skills to manage resources better and get better results.
“Without ensuring capacity for the management of resources, the impact of allocated resources will remain diminished.
“In Nigeria, as in many other developing countries, the availability of drugs is a frequent determinant of health facility utilisation.
“When facilities run out of commonly used drugs, attendance by patients drop dramatically.
“Poor management combined with problems of finance cause chronic shortage of appropriate drugs in public health facilities.”
He said that a study had shown that only 42 per cent of public health facilities have common drugs on a continuous basis.
In his remarks, Hunponu-Wusu, said: “One of the reasons for celebrating in this style — giving a lecture or a talk — is that, through this activity or event, one can reach a good and attentive audience.
“Furthermore, the event itself can be made to be educative, enlightening and entertaining to the audience.’’(NAN)
