In four years, the Federal Government has spent N203 billion to revitalise 8,800 primary healthcare centres out of the over 40,000 of such centres in the country.
It did this through the one per cent consolidated revenue fund of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF).
Lafiya360 reports that the Acting National Coordinator of the Global Fund’s Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) in Nigeria, Ibrahim Tajudeen, disclosed this during the national media meeting on the Global Fund malaria community-led monitoring project.
He further disclosed that the Global Fund had made available about $1. 8 million grant through the national malaria programme for building the capacity of frontline healthcare workers in the 13 states where the fund was currently executing anti-malaria programmes.
Tajudeen, while stating that the federal government had already announced that facilities participating in BHCPF will be increased from the current 8,800 to 17,000, added that if the government is able to achieve that within the next two years, a lot of progress would have been made in the attainment of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) target.
In his remarks, Ayo Ipinmoye, the Nigeria National Coordinator of the Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN), stated that in order to make health sector interventions more result-oriented, there is an urgent need to realign efforts to community-led monitoring.
He stressed that the primary healthcare delivery system in the country should be carefully mapped out, and sanctions applied against any misappropriation or mismanagement to enable a robust public health programme at the ward levels in local governments.
Tajudeen reiterated that the expectations from the new sector-wide policy by the Federal Government were that it help mobilise more resources for development of primary healthcare centres, towards the achievement of universal health coverage (UHC).
He further stressed that the sector-wide approach would help to redesign the current basic healthcare provision fund to make it have a far-reaching impact.
He said, “You will recall that when the BHCPF was recommended through the National Health Act, one per cent of the consolidated revenue funds was expected to be allocated to the BHCPF annually and in in the last four years, over N203 billion has been released through the BHCPF and only 8, 800 facilities out of the over 40,000 facilities in the country, leaving a gap of about 32,000 facilities, that are not participating in the one percent consolidated revenue fund implementation through BHCPF.”