Nigeria’s Primary Healthcare system is to be revitalised, in order to meet the basic health needs of citizens.
Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, who made the disclosure on Wednesday at the end of this week’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council, said an additional 10,000 Primary Health Centres, PHC would be rehabilitated to boost healthcare delivery across the country.
Dr Osagie said in the last four years, the Muhammadu Buhari administration has so far resuscitated 4,800 health centres and it intends to do more.
He said: “When he came in 2015 less than 20 per cent PHCs were working, maybe about 1,000 were working. As of now, 4800 are functional.
“So many of the health centres have been revitalised, they are working; not only are they working it is his government that provided the Basic Health Provision Fund with which service can be paid at the primary healthcare centre for those who cannot afford it for the poor.
“The aspiration is to increase the number from 4,000 to something near 10,000, one per political ward in the country.’’
COVID-19
While reacting to a question on the identity of the victim of COVID-19 in Nigeria, the minister dismissed speculations that the government was hiding the identity of the visiting Italian who tested positive to the virus.
According to him, it is medically unethical to reveal the identity of the Italian patient currently quarantined in a medical facility in Łagos.
It would be recalled that an Italian, who is yet to be publicly identified, tested positive for the virus on arrival in Nigeria on February 28.
The Minister said unlike the index case of Ebola, Patrick Sawyerr, who was known, the Italian could not be exposed because his privacy must be respected.
“In the case of Ebola, the Liberian, Patrick Sawyerr, he was identified because he died and was no longer around to give his consent but the Italian cannot be exposed because he has not given us permission to do so and we must respect his privacy,” he said.
The Minister explained that the government has so far released the sum of N935 million has so far been released to the team handling the case of Coronavirus in Nigeria, so as to avoid its spread across the country.
“It’s an extra-budgetary allocation because when the outbreak came, we discussed it and I asked the team to give us an estimate of what they will need to respond which I forwarded to the government and we were given the needed money in two tranches of N315 and N620 million. So funding is not a problem as the government has not wasted time at all in providing the resources,” he said.
Source: VON
